Wherefore Ducks? And Other Stories
by Gogol
Summary: Read the chronicles of Ankh-Morpork's Finest as they struggle valiantly to keep The Truth away from That Nosy De Worde's ears, The Convenient Lies out of That Bloody Slant's hands, and The Nobbs out of Mr. Scrope's Family Institution! **COMPLETE!**
1. Troubleshooting In Troubleshooting

**Troubleshooting: What To Do When Your Wife Has Your Manual/Journal And Will Not Give It Back **

_In which a rumor is not really just a rumor by any other name, and smells as disturbingly New(s) as ever_

The rumor spread through the city like wildfire (which had quite often spread through Ankh-Morpork since the citizens had learned the words 'fire insurance').

_The dwarfs can turn lead into gold..._

And it reached the Watch's ears, which tended to be scarred and came in all shapes and sizes (except vampire**(a)**).

"Can they?"

"I don't think so, sir," said Captain Carrot, who was standing to attention in front of Commander Vimes' desk so attentively that his tendons and other important stringy things were starting to whine from the tension. "It's not a very Dwarfish thing to do."

"I thought they - er, you, that is," Vimes corrected himself, catching Carrot's mildly reproachful expression, "like gold better than lead?"

"Oh, yes, sir. But we don't try to change one element to the other. We like them as are, generally. It wouldn't be Dwarfish to try to do that sort of thing."

"Yes, yes, you said." Vimes sighed. "What else is happening?"

"Sir, I'm a little concerned about how the rumor was started -"

"A rumor like it goes around about every other hour. I wouldn't be too worried if I were you, Captain. What else?"

Which just goes to show that even the, well, the most cynical of cynics can be too trusting.

**(a) Because Commander Vimes didn't like vampires. **

**--**

Such did not occur to Vimes the next morning, however, when he was woken in a way that was not only rude but also indecent and probably immoral in some of the stricter religions.

"Hoinarylup!"

He winced and clapped both hands over his ears.

"Squidaped-_oyt_!"

"Bloody hells," said the Duke to no one in particular.

At least, he thought he was saying it to no one in particular. Unfortunately he was proved wrong.

"Sam!"

"I meant heck," said Vimes, sitting up and looking as contrite as possible. Sybil had gotten up some time ago, apparently, and was sitting with her back to him at the big old desk**(a)** by the door.

"I'm sure," she said, but distractedly. There was a subtle shaking to her shoulders that suggested suppressed laughter. Vimes frowned. This was worrying.

"Uh, Sybil," he said, tentatively, "what are you doing?"

"Oh, nothing," she said. Yes, the amusement was creeping into her voice now. Within the confines of his own head, Vimes started to swear again.

"Come on, tell," he said.

"If you must know," said Sybil, apparently savoring the words, "I'm reading your diary. Manual, that is."

"Oh gods," said Vimes, closing his eyes in the manner of one doomed (which he was).

"It's very interesting."

"Oh gods."

"Like the bit where you wondered what the pillow was actually _for _and whether we should try it -"

"Help me," said Vimes, to Snouty, who was on the nightstand, chewing a sock solemnly. Snouty looked at him. Vimes looked back, plaintively.

Snouty swallowed his sock and then, thanks to the peculiarities of the draconic digestive system, started chewing it again.

Vimes groaned and rolled back over to face the ceiling. For a while, the only sound was the turning of pages.

Pause. Vimes thought it ominous.

"Hmm," said Sybil.

"Huh," said Sybil.

"Really?" said Sybil.

"Sybil..." said Vimes.

"Smaller-Than-Bigger-Than-Medium-Al-But-Still-Bigger-Than-Medium-Al Al?"

Vimes relaxed slightly. "The nomenclature system of Ankh-Morpork's criminal elements is getting a wee bit complicated."

"Nomenclature?"

"Carrot."

They shared a moment of silent resignation to the fact that was Carrot, then Sybil remembered that she was holding her husband's diary and thus was forbidden to show any mercy unto him whatsoever. She did at least decide to change tack, however.

"So," she said, in a dangerously calm tone, "why _were_ you using your Dis-organizer's instruction manual?"

Vimes hesitated.

"Do tell."

Sybil waited.

"I grabbed the thing closest to hand because I needed to write something down and it became a habit?"

"Conveniently bypassing the log I bought for you last Hogswatch?"

"I didn't want to mar the nice pages," said Vimes, which was in fact true, although it wasn't why he had been using the manual, of course.

"Really."

"Really!"

"So all those times I told you to go read your manual and you very exaggeratedly took it out and spent a great deal of time with it at your desk and then said there was nothing for it but the hammer again..."

"Would I have kept a diary in my Dis-organizer's manual _just _to unkindly decieve you, Sybil?" said Vimes innocently.

Luckily (for him), he didn't get a chance to hear her response, because just then Willikins appeared at the door.

"Captain Carrot to see you, sir."

"Something important?"

"I am unaware -"

"Right, good man, yes, I see, urgent, I'll just have to be off then," said Vimes, and was dressed and out the door in record time.

"Amazing," murmured Sybil to herself, and waved at the back of his helmet before returning to her fascinating reading.

**(a) It had first been purchased by her great-great-great-grandfather, Wilhelm Ramkin, or more accurately by her great-great-great-grandfather's first wife, who had ordered it on the basis that, well, it was in style, wasn't it? Even if it clashed terribly with the Horrible Pink(b) of the drawing room they had intended to put it in. Other less fashion-conscious, weaker-stomached individuals eventually relegated it to the bedroom.**

**(b) It probably will not surprise the reader to learn that the look of Horrible Pink and Brownish Orangish was, two hundred years after Wilhelm's death, finally in fashion.**

**--**

It was a nice day.

Admittedly, it was a_ chilly _nice day, but a nice day nevertheless. The sun was shining, weakly, the icy fog was clearing up, the birds were making squelching noises, the ice was slushifying in the streets, etc. Vimes liked days like these; the cold was almost as good as rain for keeping people - 'people' in this case including the unspoken appendage of 'who break the law' - indoors.

"Morning, Carrot," he said as he emerged from the Ramkin mansion.

"Good morning, sir," said Carrot, saluting. "I didn't wake you up, then? It's rather early."

"Oh no, not at all," said Vimes, and deciding not to mention the Complex Situation he had just escaped continued, "I was already awake. Yes. Right."

"If you say so, sir. Anyway, I thought you should know that the rumor wasn't just a rumor. Or at least, not quite. And there seems to be quite a lot of fuss about it..."

"What? What rumor?"

"The rumor I was telling you about the other day? You remember, the one about the dwarves turning lead into gold?"

"Oh. Yes. What about it?"

Carrot hesitated. "It's... _printing_, sir."

"Printing?" Vimes looked blank. "Who the hells would be dense enough to try printing within twenty miles of an Engravers' Guild?"

"Sir," said Carrot, but without malice. It was true - you'd have to be a complete numbskull or have been raised under a big, big rock to try that - and they both knew it.

He sighed. "All right. Start a new file in our Suicides Drawer, will you?"

"Mister Vimes?"

Vimes remembered that Carrot, while fully comprehending the Morporkian conception of suicide, always failed to understand how Vimes was able to predict... suicides... five seconds into Carrot's description of such a case. "Never mind. Lead printing presses, eh?"

"Yessir."

"Dwarves?"

"Mr. Goodmountain and associates."

"Huh." Absently, Vimes took out a cigar, lit one end, and inhaled deeply**(a)**, and stuck it in his mouth. "What are they using the presses for, exactly?"

"I'm not sure, sir."

They started down Scoone Avenue, falling automatically into a watchmen's strolling walk. They were interrupted in their path towards the Yard fairly quickly, however, when none other than Altogether Andrews came barreling out of the alleyway.

Altogether Andrews was a sad example of what happens to mediums less poised than Mrs. Cake in such a occultly potent city. Vimes was pretty sure he could vaguely recall seeing an advertisement for 'A Spiritual Aide for anyone with ju_f_t ten pence to spare for a half hour session with Andrew, Famous Medium!' years and years ago, and perhaps it was for that reason that he always looked upon the many-faced Andrews with a slight feeling of guilt, accompanied, naturally, by a rather more prominent desire to laugh, which he did his utmost best to suppress.

"Anakanak...EXT!" bellowed the current inhabitant of Andrews' body.

"Excuse me?" said Vimes. Carrot wisely took a step back.

"Oh, hallo there yer graciousness," said a voice that Vimes recognized as Mr. Viddle's. The Commander changed his stance ever so slightly, and looked less hostile - he had once, at a distance, caught a glimpse of Burke, but Viddle was all right, or at least no worse than, say, Dibbler**(b)**.

"Good morning, Mr. Viddle," said Carrot, just behind him.

"Right you are, cap'n. A fine morning it is, an' would you care for a fine copy of Ankh-Morpork's new news sheet - the Ankh-Morpork Times?"

Vimes opened his mouth to say something sarcastic that would have amounted to a 'no thanks', but the Captain spoke first.

"Yes indeed, Mr. Viddle, we would like a copy. How much is it?"

"Twenty pence."

"Hah!"

"There you are, sir," said Carrot to the triumphant Viddle, unperturbed by his superior officer's amusement. "Twenty pence, and good day to you."

"Thankee very much, cap'n," said Viddle, proffering a damp greyish sheet. Vimes took it, cautiously, and Viddle disappeared as suddenly as he had come through some secret alleyway that only Beggars - or ex-Beggars - knew**(c)**.

"The Ankh-Morpork Times," Vimes read aloud off the top of the page. "Why did you buy this, Carrot?"

"I think that's what the printing press dwarves have been working on, sir."

"Ah, I see. Hmm." He flipped through it idly. "Fifty-six hurt in a tavern brawl? No there bloody well weren't! Can't have been more than half a dozen who were out of it by the time the place closed. I ought to know, I was the one banging old Nork's head against the wall-"

"It does seem a little odd, sir. Perhaps a misprint?"

"No doubt. Here, you take a look." He thrust the paper towards Carrot, who hesitated ever so slightly. "It won't bite."

"Sir," said Carrot, taking the paper and reading it carefully, index finger out. Vimes waited patiently for about 0.000067 seconds before proceeding onwards and ignoring Carrot's reproachful looks as the young man hurried, several moments later, to catch up.

"Well, there's nothing very interesting written inside."

"Hah!" said Vimes, again. "Famous last words, Carrot, famous last words."

"Really, sir? Whose?"

"No-one's. Yet."

Still after perusing it more meticulously, even Vimes had to admit it seemed quite harmless. He even forgot about it, or rather, he didn't think about it once he got to the Watch House until he heard the excited shouting nearby and went out just in time to see William de Worde climbing onto the parapet of Welcome Soap, notebook and pen in hand.

**(a) Generally a dangerous enterprise in Ankh-Morpork, but Vimes was in relatively good shape and had a few years left before his sense of smell even thought about returning.**

**(b) Not that _that_ was hard.**

**(c) And Viddle was, in fact, an ex-Beggar. Once an esteemed(d) member of that noble Guild, he had been thrown out by Queen Molly's Merry Men when it was discovered that he was, on the side, disguised in false mustache and glasses, working in a _job _at the local pharmacy, by way of a sort of secret vice. He died whilst in a scheduled explosion at the Alchemists' Guild House, through a freak incident involving several alembics and a cork. His wandering spirit found the pleasantly open mind of Andrew a few days later... and, well, the rest is history. **

**(d) Esteemed by other Beggars, that is.**

**--**

There was another man up on the ledge, besides the lad currently ascending the narrow stairs that led up to it. Vimes squinted at him.

"Is that... Arthur Crank?" he asked Corporal Nobbs, who was standing at ease - or rather slouching at ease - beside him.

"Looks like it, sir."

"Who's that other fellow, the skinny bloke with the notebook?"

"Dunno, sir. He was saying something about 'getting the story' earlier, though."

"The_ story?_"

"Yessir. We din't know what to make of it either, sir."

"I don't doubt that," Vimes muttered darkly, his eyes on the figures above him. "Stay where you our, Corporal, I've got a hunch that one of the two is going to need some help."

"Yessir!" said Nobby, bringing himself proudly to something slightly more vertical, in an averaged out sort of way, than previously. Vimes was already lost in the crowd.

The amiably disfigured watchman turned back to the scene on the parapet, cheering everyone on indiscriminately and doing so especially loudly when the other fellow, the skinny bloke with the notebook, fainted, which he considered well worth the loss of the sight of Mrs. Crank haranguing her morbidly inclined husband.

Vimes was less pleased about the whole business, but since it appeared that Detritus' bucket of chalk would be unnecessary, he left Nobbs to terrorize the unfortunate young man with the notebook in order to find Angua.

"Sergeant!" he said loudly, catching a glimpse of long blonde hair as the werewolf sergeant passed.

"Sir?" she said, turning around and ignoring the large man with the revolving eyeball who almost walked into her.

"What were they saying up there? I couldn't hear."

"Nothing very special, sir."

"Is that the phrase of the a day, or what?" He waved a hand dismissively at her blank look. "Never mind. Look, special or no I'd like to know."

"If you say so, sir."

"That one too!"

"What?"

"Er... nothing. Thinking of something Captain Carrot said. Well?"

"Uh... de Worde -"

"That was Lord de Worde up there? You're kidding me!"

"Oh, no sir. That was his son - William, I think it is. They're... estranged," she added.

"That would make more sense - hmm," said Vimes, thoughtfully. "Estranged, eh? Go on."

"Er, de Worde said that he wanted the man's name and address and profession."

Vimes thought of the neat little names on the first page of the Ankh-Morpork Times, details about their owners next to them...

"Bugger," he said.

"What is it?"

"I'm... not sure. I'll bet you anything, though, that that there de Worde boy is trouble."

"You really think so, sir? He looks like a nice enough young man."

"Who said he wasn't a nice young man?" said Vimes, and didn't answer any more questions on the subject. But he did keep an ear open for... well, for _news _on the news. One way or another.

He was also distracted by the unfortunate knowledge that his bloody wife was probably reading his bloody diary at this very bloody moment. Many were the woes of Samuel Vimes - and that was the day _before _all the trouble _really _started.


	2. Interviews, Why Not To Give 'Em

**Interviews, Why Not To Give 'Em**

_In which His Lordship apologizes about the whole killing people business for the first time ever, and everything else (naturally) goes straight to hell_

"Mrpikeerah-Tis!"

"Is this going to be a regular occurrence?" Vimes muttered.

"It certainly seems like it," said Sybil. "Pull the covers over your head, dear."

Vimes tried it, but when the mattress seemed inclined to start sucking him into its soft, feathery depths he pushed them away again. "Never mind, I'm up now anyway."

"Mm-hmm," said Sybil, distractedly. Vimes recognized the tone.

"Oh no," he said.

"Yes," Sybil agreed. "I'm at the bit where you-"

"I'mgoingoutsideforabitoffreshairdearpaynomindpaynomind!"

So it was that when Captain Carrot came jogging down Scoone Avenue, he found his commander outside of his own gate, leaning against the cast-iron dragon with the sign that said 'Don't let my fire go out!' and reading a paper of news.

"Sir!"

Vimes lowered the _Times _and looked up.

"Carrot? What's going on?" ...with the unspoken addition 'this time'.

"It's Vetinari, sir."

"Vetinari?"

"He's... tried to kill somebody..."

"_What_?"

"I don't know any more, sir, I just heard from Nobby -"

But Vimes had already taken off at a run even faster than the one he had employed when attempting to escape his wife. Carrot sighed and did his best to keep up.

--

There was a growing crowd around the Palace already, even at little more than seven in the morning. Carrot, massive and thus naturally hesitant about barging through people as he was, made his way only slowly through the mob, but Vimes went through it like a hot knife through ice, if any hot knife had used its elbows to its advantages and interspersed its progress with "Bugger!" "Out of my way!" "'Scuse me, 'scuse me" &c. Behind him, slightly bewildered (and in some cases lightly bruised) people were slowly filling up the path, creating an interesting effect not unakin to running a finger through hot jam**(a).**

"Move," he snarled, as he reached the last barrier (two Palace Guards.)

"We've been ordered to-"

"By whom, exactly? Your boss is under arrest, in case you were wondering!"

Behind him, a gasp rippled through the crowd. Vimes swore under his breath. Never mind, it would have gotten out one way or another. And, well, what else was he supposed to do?

Guard #1 looked puzzled. Guard #2 was staring off into the distance, thinking happy thoughts. Vimes sighed and said "Look, just let me through. Your orders are now nullified. No one is going to care, at this point."

"Wot about me, eh?" said a wheezy voice from the crowd.

"Oh, _Mum,_" said Guard #1, who appeared to be the marginally brighter of the two.

"Don't you oh Mum me, Billy! You just come down here right now and tell your Mum why youse been workin' for a crook like Vetinari, eh?"

"Here, you oughtn't call the Patrician a crook, Mum, if I tole you that once I tole you that a thousand times -"

Vimes took the opportunity to dash through the doorway as 'Billy' came down the steps, pleading uselessly with his indomitable mother all the way.

The inside of the Palace was, for once, almost as bad as the outside. Clerks - some wearing suspiciously loose clothing - rushed about every which way. He was pretty sure he caught a glimpse of the cook sobbing in the corner.

"EVERYBODY FREEZE!" he bellowed, at the top of his lungs. To his surprise, they did so. He blinked.

"Right," he said. "Now,_what the hells just happened_?"

There was a good deal of shuffling, then two maids hurried forward. Between them they were disturbing Havelock Vetinari's chief clerk.

"Drumknott?" said Vimes, and then focused in on the blood staining through the man's shirt. "Good gods, man!"

"We couldn't get him to go," said one of the maids tearfully, "he was very upset about the whole business. Oh sir, His Lordship _stabbed_him!"

"He stabbed Drumknott?"

"Yessir! I saw it myself, sir!"

"Me too, sir," said the other maid.

"I - Carrot!" he said, as, indeed, the red-haired man came in. "Take Mr. Drumknott to Igor, will you? He could do with it."

"What, Igor, sir?"

"No! I meant Drumknott! Argh! Do it!"

"Yessir!" said Carrot, taking in the state of the clerk, and of his commander's mind. "Right away _sir!_"

"Okay," said Vimes, as Carrot hurried off, Drumknott half over his shoulder, "now, where's Vetinari?"

"We don't know, sir," said Maid #1**(c).**

"Damn," he said, mostly to himself. "All right. What exactly did you see?"

"Mildred, Clancy and I were on the Hallway Four route when we saw His Lordship on the balcony..."

Vimes listened. When she was finished, he frowned at her.

"'I killed him, I killed him, I'm sorry'?"

"'I've killed him, I've killed him, I'm sorry,'" M1**(d)** corrected him, conscientiously.

"You're joking."

"Nossir."

"Oh, hells." He sighed. The trouble was, she _wasn't _lying, or at least he sure didn't think so. He felt it in his bones. Still, the whole business smelled wrong.

"Is there anything else you can tell me?"

"No, sir."

"All right. Ladies, gentlemen -" he paused, tried to think, and eventually opted for "- don't any of you have homes to go to?"

By the time he'd gotten rid of most of Vetinari's staff, Carrot had returned, along with Angua, Detritus, Flint, Littlebottom, and Stronginthearm.

"I thought you might need some back-up, sir."

"You were right," said Vimes, drily. He briefed them, well, briefly on what he'd learned and then ordered them to spread out around the Palace, divided up the areas of the Palace between them and added, "I want every inch searched, but don't touch _nothin'. _If you find anything, report back to me immediately, unless it's Vetinari, in which case please don't get yourself killed by him, Carrot**(e)**. I'll be in the Oblong Office, reading his paperwork right side up for once."

They laughed, weakly and nervously, and set out.

**(a) As the Secretary of the Guild of Jam-makers was quick to point out to the Association for the Creation of Useless Similes (ACUS)(b).**

**(b) Referred to obliquely as "The Expletive" by those who had an equally oblique sense of humor.**

**(c) Whose name was Mary, and was really quite a pleasant, competent person who in another leg of the Trousers of Time struck up a close friendship with Angua, helped Vimes solve a particularly nasty case, turned out to be the long-lost princess of a long-lost kingdom, and ended up marrying Vetinari's previously nonexistent twin brother, Percival. In this one, however, her special eye-catching-across-a-crowded-room technique was completely lost on the morphologically gifted sergeant and she was eventually run over by a stampede of wild Cliches in a more obscure section of the Library.**

**(d) You learned to abbreviate in the Watch. One way or another.**

**(e) Because even Assassins are hard-put to injure trolls and dwarves and werewolves (oh my), although Vimes would admit that such an Assassin would find it only slightly easier to kill Carrot, hulking, six-foot-six-inch man with a friendly smile that he was.**

--

In the end, it wasn't Carrot who found Vetinari. It was Detritus.

"Hum doo hum dum," the troll muttered to himself, plodding along through the extensive stables**(a).**

In the layered silence created by a bunch of horses breathing, chewing, stomping, swishing, etc., someone groaned. Detritus paused.

"That's odd," he said. "No one supposed to be in here. I wonder who in here when no one supposed to be in here?"

So it was that he came across the prone form of the Patrician, lying sprawled under the feet of a very nervous horse with a very heavy bag on its back. Detritus contemplated this for a while.

"I fink," he said eventually, "this is a special sce-nar-i-o."And he went to get Commander Vimes.

**(a) No one actually knew why the stables were so extensive. The clacks had effectively negated the need for equestrian messengers, and there were only a few coaches used by the Palace, not nearly enough to explain all the horses. In fact Vetinari had tried to get rid of them several times, but they kept coming back. It wasn't as if most of them were fed or groomed, although admittedly there were a lot of empty stalls, or would have been had it not been for the constant horsy influx. It was just one of the mysteries of the multiverse. Drumknott, for instance, considered that possibly they spawned.**

--

Vimes didn't actually read that much of Vetinari's paperwork, even once Vetinari himself was safely locked away, because after shifting the very topmost layer over he almost gutted himself on a surprise blade which even his copper's ears hadn't heard, and after that he'd considered it best advised to keep his distance for a while. When it became apparent that there was no more fresh evidence to be had, he went started down the stairs with Carrot... only to be met half-way by Constable Fiddyment. Behind him, he saw the skinny bloke with the notebook from the day before, looking nosy, which Vimes was starting to think was the man's base state of being.

"Constable?" he muttered.

"Sir, that man wants to ask you some questions about the case..."

"He_what?" _said Vimes, louder than he had intended. He glared at the SBWTN. Just when he'd thought the day couldn't get any worse...

He strode down the steps and looked the man up and down. Now he was paying attention, he saw that SBWTN had a faintly aristocratic air about his features - where had he seen that skinny, long nose before? Lord de Something, wasn't it?

"What is it you're wanting?" he asked in what he thought was quite a reasonable way, all things considered.

"I want to know what's happened here, please," said SBWTN. Yes, it was in the way he talked, too, except for the please bit, but that seemed... affected.

"Why?" he snapped.

"Because people will want to know."

And your point is...? thought Vimes, but said instead "Hah! They'll find out soon enough!"

"But who from, sir?" said the SBWTN, looking ridiculously smug. The expression, everything was almost familiar. Vimes circled slowly around the lad - barely more than a boy, really. Then it hit him.

"You're Lord de Worde's boy, aren't you?"

"Yes, Your Grace," said de Worde. Vimes remembered now. He'd seen some advertisement a while ago, hadn't he? William, that was it, William de Worde, who worked with words. He'd found it mildly pathetic at the time. Now, however...

"Commander will do. And you write that little..." the name escaped him "gossipy thing, right?"

"Broadly, sir." Which could be taken in many different ways.

"What was it you did to Sergeant Detritus?" He hadn't expected anyone to be able to get through Detritus.

"I only wrote down what he said, sir."

"Aha! Pulled a pen on him, eh?"

"Sir?" said de Worde, looking innocent.

"Writing things down at people?" said Vimes, ignoring the look and tsking, slightly theatrically, but the man did write things down so he would know that nobody was going to say precisely what he was thinking to _him_. Theatrically it was. "That sort of thing only causes trouble."

He stopped circling and stared at de Worde face-to-face.

"This has not been a nice day," he said, with a straight face (although he saw Angua out of the corner of his eye, snickering), "and it's going to get a lot worse. Why should I waste my time talking to you?"

"I can tell you one good reason," said de Worde. Vimes raised his eyebrows and said

"Well, go on then."

"You should talk to me so that I can write it down, sir. All neat and correct. The actual words you say, right down on the paper. And you know who I am, and if I get them wrong, you know where to find me."

Vimes listened incredulously to this. "So? You're telling me that if I do what you want, you'll do what you want?"

"I'm saying, sir, a lie can run around the world before the truth has got its boots on."

Vimes snorted. "Did you just make that up?"

"No, sir. But you know it's true."

Unfortunately, he did. He recalled that his cigar was burning unattended, and breathed in smoke.

"And you'll let me see what you've written?"

"Of course. I'll make sure you get one of the first papers off the press, sir," said de Worde.

Cheek! "I meant_before_ it gets published, and you know it."

"To tell you the truth, no, I don't think I should do that, sir."

De Worde sounded oddly earnest, which was frankly a first, although he was still using what Vimes was coming to think of as his special Impersonal Newsy Person voice.

"I am commander of the Watch, lad," Vimes pointed out, evenly.

"Yes, sir. And I'm not." Got that right, thought Vimes silently. "I think that's my point, really, although I'll have to work on it some more."

Got that right too, thought Vimes. And many other things. Too many for my taste. But you're not going to give up easily, are you?

Unfortunately (for the Commander) he was all too right about that. At the time, however, the observation merely made his decision for him.

He covered, in monotone, with what he was also already coming to think of as his own special Talking To The Damn _Nosy_ Impersonal Newsy Person voice, the details of the case, but as he registered what he was saying he was forced to interrupt himself. "Carrot, this is damn_stupid._"

"I know, sir," said Carrot, to Vimes' mild surprise - Carrot rarely admitted anything as stupid. Carrot thought everyone and everything was differently intelligent, even Fred Colon. "They are the facts, sir."

Like he didn't bloody know it. "But they're not the right facts! They're stupid facts!"

"I know, sir. I can't imagine His Lordship trying to kill anyone."

"Are you mad?" said Vimes, although a little voice in the back of his head skipped the constant reaffirmation of the wonder that was Carrot and just said He's as mad as usual, are you really that surprised? "I can't imagine him saying sorry!"

He realized that de Worde was still there, waiting patiently, and turned on him. "Yes?"

"Why was His Lordship unconscious, sir?"

"It looks as though he was trying to get on the horse," said Vimes, shrugging. "He's got a game leg. Maybe he slipped -" There's only so far you can go into the realms of impossible speculation, even in the company of Nosy Impersonal Newsy People. "I can't believe I'm saying this. Anyway, that's your lot, understand?"

"I'd like to get an iconograph of you, please?" said de Worde, clearly _not _understanding.

"_Why?"_Vimes demanded. He'd never had an iconograph taken of him in his life voluntarily. Although with Sybil in her current mood and with her current ammunition the last clause was probably soon not going to matter.

"It will reassure the citizens that you are on the case and handling this personally, Commander. My iconographer is just downstairs. Otto!"

A thin, pale, black haired man appeared - oh, no. "Good gods, a damn vampire -"

"He's a Black Ribboner, sir," Carrot whispered. Typical that he knew at all - in fact it occurred to Vimes that Carrot could probably match a name to a face for every Black Ribboner in the city. He rolled his eyes.

"Good mornink. Do not be movink, please, you are making a good pattern of light and shade." Inconsistent accent? That was interesting - but Vimes was distracted when Otto said "Looking this way, please -" and -

There was a soft whooshing noise -

"- oh, shee-yut!"

Mr. Otto The Black Ribboner collapsed into a pile of dust. At the same instant, Vimes had a funny premonition, the sort that just comes to you every now and then. He thought, this is not the last time I will have the pleasure of seeing Mr. Otto The Black Ribboner explode before this business is done with. It was not an entirely discouraging thought.

"What the hell just happened then?" he said, after a moment.

"Too much flash, I think," said de Worde, bending down and picking up something sticking out of the sad little pile. His hand, Vimes noted with evil satisfaction, was shaking.

"DO NOT BE ALARMED," the man read aloud. "The former bearer of this card has suffered a minor accident.. You vill need a drop of blood from any species, and a dustpan and brush."

"Well, the kitchens are that way**(a)**. Sort him out. I don't want my men treading him in all over the damn place." He could just see it - years later, vampires sprouting out of the wallpaper because of one Ribboner's obsession with flash iconography. Ha!

"One last thing, sir. Would you like me to say that if anyone saw anything suspicious they should tell you, sir?"

Vimes did his best not to laugh. "In this town? We'd need every man in the Watch just to control the queue. Just you be careful what you write, that's all."

Very careful, he added for his own benefit. Very, very careful. And not just because of me, either.

**(a) Years later, Vimes would think back to this moment and have a renewed urged to really earn his bloodthirsty title for the first time. Damn literal journalists.**


	3. The Curious Case

**The Curious Case Of The Sudden Acquisition Of Normal Human Qualities In The Night Time**

_In which reports are collected, to no avail and Vimes' serious displeasure, and Mr. Drumknott and His Grace have a little chat_

After getting away from the damn journalist, the two watchmen headed back up to the office, where Angua was employing her Special Skills. This meant that their first sight of her was the tip of a golden, shaggy tail sticking out from behind the desk.

Vimes coughed politely. After a moment, the wolf-shaped sergeant backed out from under Vetinari's little death-trap, looking slightly rumpled and wrinkling her long nose but otherwise none the worse for wear.

She then proceeded to stare fixedly at them. Vimes sighed, Carrot looked puzzled, and by a series of gestures and nudges they both ended up outside, facing the wall while Angua attended to her, uh, toilette.

She came back out looking slightly less disheveled than she had in lupin form, but with a rather more grim expression on her face**(a). **"Peppermint bomb," she said shortly, when the Commander looked inquiringly at her. "Nothing I can do. Or rather, nothing to smell but bloody, bloody peppermint."

"I thought I caught a whiff of it. Nothing, eh? Not even bloody, bloody blood?"

She glared at him.

"Sorry, sergeant," said Vimes, genuinely - or at least thirty-six percent genuinely - contrite. "But_can _you smell blood here?"

"No sir. Which is... a bit odd, actually."

"Yes," he agreed. "It is."

She nodded. "You suspect foul play, sir?"

"I wouldn't say that," said Vimes, noting Carrot's horrified look. Angua looked resigned.

"I see, sir."

"I'm sure you do. Look, let's get back to the Yard, shall we? I'll feel better once I'm out of Vetinari's office, damn place is giving me the jitters."

They left. By a curiously neat coincidence, they left just in time to miss William de Worde and Otto Chriek on their first (but not last) Special Not Strictly Legal Investigative Enterprise.

**(a) It's hard for a wolf to look grim. It just doesn't come naturally to them - though of course, to their intended victim their very presence can seem very grim indeed, as one Gavin von Uberwald, former trapper, can testify.**

--

Corporal Cheery Littlebottom looked distinctly anxious when Vimes called her in to report.

"Uh... sir... you aren't going to like it..."

Vimes suppressed a sigh. It seemed that recently there was a lot of news he wasn't going to like. And his watchmen tended to be pretty good at predicting that sort of thing**(a)**.

"Stop looking so uncomfortable, Littlebottom, you're making me nervous." She stopped pulling her beard**(b)**. He choked back laughter. "Right. Better. Now - what did you find?"

"Uh... William de Worde and Mr. Chriek..."

"_What?_"

"I did tell you, sir. Nobby let them in."

"Oh, gods."

"Yessir. Anyway it took me a bit to get rid of them, 'cos the vampire used his iconograph..."

"The vamp - oh. Well, at least that got taken care of - wait, why did the iconograph stop you?"

Littlebottom looked hesitant. "It's an Uberwald thing, sir."

"Do I look like I care, Corporal?"

The dwarf scrutinized him carefully. "Well, sir, the raised eyebrow suggests -"

Vimes put his head in his hands. Sometimes he could really tell where Carrot got it from. "Never mind. Just tell me."

"If you say so, sir..." she said doubtfully. Vimes made a little grunting noise at the too familiar phrase. "Um. Well. Have you ever heard of... dark light?"

"Dark light? No."

"I'm not surprised. It's an Uberwald thing."

"So you said."

"Yessir. It's kind of complicated, sir, but long story short, there's this type of eel that lives in caves in the Ramtops."

"And?"

"And, well, it's the Ramtops, sir."

"What - oh."

"Exactly. So these eels evolved, um, the ability to flash bursts of dark light."

"What's dark light, then?"

"It's sort of like concentrated octarine, sir. You know? The color only wizards can see? But that's not exactly it, sir. It's kind of... special."

"Special," said Vimes flatly.

"Sir."

"Just what I needed to hear," he said to no one in particular.

"Sorry, sir."

"Not your fault, Littlebottom. But... special. Okay. What exactly does that mean?"

"Nobody really knows, sir. There's just a bunch of old superstitions around the stuff... It's supposed to be really bad."

He waited patiently. The vertically challenged corporal caught the hint.

"I... people say that it eats away at your soul, sir. And that it'll kill a dying man. Things like that."

"Of shock, by the sound of it," Vimes muttered. "Huh." A thought struck him. "_Which_people?"

"Sir?"

"Are these dwarves we're talking about here?"

"Er, nothing so specific, sir. Just... people people."

"You mean the people who live in The Community?"

"Yessir."

"Oh, not them _again_..."

"Yessir."

"Hells." Without thinking, he pulled out a cigar and lit it. "Call in Nobby, will you?"

"Yessir."

She left, the very bobbing of her helmeted head radiating relief**(d). **

After a while, there was a hesitant yet expressive knock on the door. It suggested very strongly that the knocker was not all that terribly enthusiastic about meeting the knockee, that, in fact, the knocker would prefer to be anywhere but within a five mile radius of the knockee. There were undertones of mild criminality in that knock. There were also undertones of mild indecency, and a dash of strangely organic scent as well, which most watchmen now referred to as "The Instead-of Shave."

"Come in, Nobby," said Vimes.

"Er... good morning, sir," said Corporal Nobbs, opening the door and sidling through the entranceway.

"Is it?" said Vimes."

"Sir?"

"I think good is too strong a word, Nobby."

"Er..."

"Can you tell me exactly _what _it was that possessed you to let William de bloody Worde and his bloody vampire iconographer through?"

"Er..."

"I really hope you can tell me, Nobby, because if you can't I will not be happy. At all."

Corporal Nobbs paled visibly.

"Sir! It was, er, to be honest sir..." (Vimes considered pointing out the folly of that claim, when it was _Nobby,_ but refrained) "...they took a picture of me, sir. Said some awful nice things, they did, about the val-i-ant watchmen and whatnot."

Vimes stared at Nobby. Nobby looked defensive.

"They did! It weren't my fault, they said you told them anyhow -"

"What?! I never -"

A thought struck him.

Eventually, he said, still staring at some faraway point, "Ah."

Then, "Nobby?"

"...sir?"

"You're free to go."

"Thank you sir!"

Note to self, thought Vimes, be very, very careful what you say around That Nosy De Worde Boy.

**(a) Because, though the Commander himself never really thought of it that way, an instinct for what news Vimes would and would not like was a necessary survival trait in the exciting world of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch.**

**(b) Which was curly, and blond. And was braided. With the ends tied in blue ribbons Hrolf, her boyfriend, had told her matched her eyes(c).**

**(c) Which were hazel. Dwarves are not known for their color matching, unless we're talking garnets vs. emeralds here.**

**(d) Something quite difficult to do for the average bobbing helmeted head, but Cheery - again, as with most surviving watchmen - had had practice.**

--

In a cold, stone cell lit by dancing, eerie bluish lights, Igor was doing some serious fussing.

Vetinari was lying on the slab, looking extremely out of it. He had a great big lump on the side of his head, and was unnaturally pale, even according to his normal standards. Since he seemed to be in stable condition, however, and Igor had done as much as could be done**(a), **the constable was concentrating on Drumknott instead.

The injured clerk was certainly more lively than Vetinari, although that wasn't saying much. The man was still unconscious, but he jerked when Igor used his Special Hammers and occasionally muttered things in his sleep. The arm was healing, now, and really all that was left was for him to wake up. Still that was taking unusually long, hence the Igoric fussing -

"Ungghhk," groaned Drumknott, rolling over onto his side. Igor hurried over.

"Mithter Drumknott?"

"Uh..." said the young man, and opened his eyes. To his credit, he only flinched a little. "Er. Hullo. Er."

Igor recalled that he had his magnifying glass attached to his head still and that this occasionally seemed to frighten people, for no reason that he could discern. He removed it.

"Thorry about that, thur."

"That's... all right. I think," said Drumknott. "You would be Constable Igor, then?"

"Yeththur."

"Right," said a shadow detaching itself from one wall. Vimes stepped forward. "Good... I believe it's afternoon now."

"Good afternoon, Commander," said Drumknott warily.

"Igor, isn't there something you should be doing right now?"

"Er, no, sir**(b)**, I'm actually not too buthy-"

"Igor, _isn't there something you should be doing right now?_"

"Oh," said Igor, looking disappointed**(c)**. "I thuppothe tho, thur. I'll go, er, check the old lightning bottles. Bottleth." He bustled off.

Once Igor was gone, Vimes regarded Vetinari's head clerk in silence for a while.

"What _exactly_do you remember?" he said.

"Not much," said Drumknott firmly.

"Oh?"

"It's all a bit of a haze. I remember coming over to bring His Lordship the_Times, _and then someone hit me..."

"I see."

"I don't know what's happening, sir. I really don't."

Vimes considered him again.

Drumknott was... well, unobtrusive. He was a secretary, he was in his twenties, and he was male. That was about as much as you could say about him before devolving into the fatal 'ish-es' - brown-ish hair, medium-ish height, the list went on. As a policeman, Vimes knew the dangers of thinking of people in terms of generalities**(d). **Probably that was why Vetinari had kept the man so long - even Wonse hadn't been as formless, as vague, as furniture-like as Drumknott. Rather the opposite, really. All things considered.

He probably wasn't the sort to lie without necessity, Vimes decided. And here, what would be the point? He _had _been unconscious for the last few days. What motivation would he have for _hiding _Vetinari's crime if he thought the man had done it?

"His Lordship is under arrest," he said finally, "for suspected attempted murder and embezzlement."

Drumknott stared. Vimes nodded. "I know. And yes, the attempted murder's _victim _would have been you."

"I..." Drumknott tried.

"Were you looking for a nice stable job with good pay?" said the Commander, genuinely curious.

"Er, yes?"

Vimes shook his head. "You picked the wrong career. You could have done something nice and safe, like testing swamp dragons for explosive power..."

"Excuse me?"

"Never mind. Well? Anything sparking your memory?"

Drumknott seemed to be contemplating the new information for a while, and Vimes was about to leave when he said,

"I don't think so."

"Pardon?"

"I don't recall anything more. And... His Lordship isn't the sort to embezzle. Or try to murder anyone."

Vimes grinned mirthlessly. "That's what I thought too. Funny, isn't it? Man never showed the slightest interest in money, but now I'm supposed to believe he tried to run off with heaps of gold? He's a trained assassin and he doesn't manage to kill his own secretary after two tries? He's the most ruthless, cold-blooded bastard I know -" Drumknott looked suspiciously blank "- but he drinks some alcohol to get his nerve up? Well. Facts are facts, Mr. Drumknott."

"But..."

"The case isn't closed yet. Investigations are proceeding, one way or another."

"Your Grace..." The young man was clearly distraught, so Vimes forgave him the bloody title-pulling "You don't really think that he did it, do you?"

"Technically speaking, lad, I'm not supposed to have an opinion at all until we find out more."

"Oh."

"Cheer up," said Vimes. "In all probability, the worst that will happen to him is public disgrace and execution by mobs with flaming pitchforks."

Drumknott looked distinctly unamused by the prospect. Huh. Well, it was a relief, in a weird sort of way, to know that at least _one _member of Vetinari's staff wasn't going to try to summon a dragon and overthrow the Patricianship anytime soon.

**(a) And when an Igor has done as much as can be done, you know it's _really _as much as can be done. In this case as much as could be done had involved several exciting salves of many colors, a hammer, and a good deal of bottle lightning. Vetinari was persistently unconscious throughout, which should tell you pretty much everything you need to know about Vetinari's general state of health.**

**(b) We can only assume that Igor was hopeful for an opportunity to eavesdrop and thus slipped.**

**(c) A very interesting expression when one has a diagonally arranged mouth and eyes of mismatched level, size, and color. Then again, most expressions transcribed on the... special features peculiar to Igors looked pretty interesting.**

**(d) Although he did not know this as _definitively _as he would in a few years after the curious case of Alfred Spangler, Ethel Snake, and Co.**

**--**

When he got back to his office, Angua was waiting for him. She handed him a newspaper silently.

"What, a lunchtime edition?"

"It would seem so, sir," said Angua. There was a hesitant quality in her voice that didn't register at the time but that he remembered later, with reason.

He took the paper, sat down at his desk, lit a cigar, blew a cloud of bluish smoke (causing Angua to politely edge out of the way) and unfolded the paper. He smirked at the heading "The Truth Shall Make Ye Fred."

He read it.

Angua, who had been politely edging out of the way throughout, was now half-way out the door**(a) **and moving at a good speed for someone nonchalantly sidling offstage.

He ignored this and read it all the way through a second time, just to make sure.

_Then_ he started to yell.

**(a) Yet _another_ talent inherently necessary to day-to-day survival in Pseudopolis Yard.**


	4. Corporal Nobbs, Wonder Wolf

**Corporal Nobbs, Wonder Wolf**

_In which exposition happens and William de Worde narrowly escapes death by piercing stare_

In fact, William de Worde, though he didn't know it, _very _narrowly escaped death on the day Vetinari was arrested. It happened like this:

As Vimes was merrily making his rage known to the world in general via the open windows and doors of Pseudopolis Yard and, of course, his own healthy lungs, he was also scanning the rest of the newspaper, because when you were commander of the large and bustling organism that was the Ankh-Morpork City Watch you learned to multi-task**(a)**.

And, just as he was plotting how to get rid of the body, in a subconscious sort of way, he came across the article in which Slant featured prominently.

He stopped shouting at last.

He grinned.

**(a) Of course, sometimes you didn't. Sometimes you ended up with an unlicensed thief's crossbow bolt through your head, too, because you were busy trying to ring a bell and due to a sad lack of multi-tasking ability weren't able to look up and see the bastard on the roof across the alley from you at the same time.**

--

"De Worde is just outside," Vimes told Angua, hearing Detritus' voice.

"Sir," she said, and faded into the shadows in a very specific way.

He nodded at the area of wall where she was leaning nonchalantly. "Good."

William de Worde came in. Vimes glanced up at him, and saw that he was _not _out of breath and that he had _not _just been running to answer Vimes' summons. Hmm.

"Well, well, that was quick," he said, unnecessarily. "Run all the way, did you?" he added, despite all evidence to the contrary.

"No, sir, I was coming here hoping to ask you some questions," de Worde said.

Surprise, surprise. "That was kind of you."

The lad looked just a shade nervous - he wasn't completely stupid, then.

"So - " he started, when the Commander had been silent for several seconds too long.

"_Why _did you do this?" Vimes snarled, with more anger than he actually felt - well, this was a damn newsy person, so he got to put on a show. He gestured at the newspaper lying innocently on his desk. "Baffled, am I?"

"If you would like to tell me that you are not, Commander, I will be happy to make note of the fa-" the other man started.

Well, he wasn't having it. "Leave that notebook alone!"

De Worde actually had the gall to look innocent and surprised. As if he didn't know the power of his 'little gossipy thing' by now.

"I won't have you doing to me what you did to Slant," Vimes added, calming down somewhat.

"Every word of that story is true, sir," said de Worde.

"I'd be on it.. It sounds like his style."

The zombie hadn't actually put up a very good show, he reflected silently. Barging in? Trying a bunch of legal mumbo-jumbo on someone who obviously wasn't an idiot? That was the lawyer's style, granted, but Vimes had thought the man - zombie, that was - had more sense. Ah well. Perhaps death made it a touch difficult to think clearly.

"Look, Commander, if there's something wrong with my story, tell me what it is," said de Worde, once again with that wretched innocent, affronted, I'm-trying-to-be-helpful-and-you-aren't-letting-me tone of his. Vimes threw up his hands.

"Are you going to print everything you hear? Do you intend to run around _my city _like some loose - some loose siege weapon? You sit their clutching your precious integrity like a teddy bear and you haven't the faintest idea, have you, the faintest idea how hard you can make my job?"

He was genuinely pissed, now.

"It's not against the law to -" the lad started, stupidly. You _never _told a policeman something wasn't against the law. There was always a catch. Take this case.  
"Isn't it? Isn't it, though? In Ankh-Morpork?" (Which was enough of a catch in and of itself.) "Stuff like this? It reads like Behavior Likely to Cause a Breach of the Peace**(a)** to _me!_"

"It might upset people," said de Worde, who was starting to flush with irritation at last, "but this is important!"

_Important._ He recognized that tune. And at last he began to feel just a bit of pity as he looked at de Worde, this strange idealist dropped straight into _Ankh-Morpork_, of all places.

Not much pity, though, because he was a citizen thereof.

"And what will you write next, I wonder?" he said, after a moment.

"I haven't printed that you have a werewolf employed in the Watch."

Vimes barely suppressed a wince, and hoped to any god he could name that Angua was having a really really good day.

"Where did you hear that?" she said quietly, stepping forward a little. He relaxed slightly and thanked all said gods - clearly her, er, hair and other associated wolfy things were doing all right.

"This is Sergeant Angua. You can speak freely in front of her," he remember to clarify, when de Worde looked leery of answering this suspiciously attractive and blonde stranger's question.

"I've... heard rumors," de Worde said. Oh, that significant pause, thought Vimes.

"And?" said Angua, pointedly.

"Look, I can see this is worrying you. Please let me assure you that Corporal Nobbs' secret is safe with me."

He spoke airily, in the manner of one throwing off a casual piece of information. Even Vimes, who had kept a straight face throughout Corporal Cheery Littlebottom's interview, barely managed to keep some approximation of an expression that was _not laughter. _He didn't want to think of what it must look like, especially to de Worde. Beside him, he was pretty sure he heard the subtle but present sounds of Angua choking back a hysterical outburst.

"We don't often talk about Corporal Nobbs' species," Vimes managed, eventually. "I would deem it a small favor if you would take the same approach." Angua had to turn to face the wall. Luckily de Worde's mind was clearly on other things.

"Yes, sir," he said absently (never a good sign in a Damn Nosy Newsy Person). "So could I ask you why you're having me watched?"

All amusement forgotten, Vimes said carefully, "I am?"

"The gargoyles. Everyone knows a lot of them work for the Watch these days."

Damn. Luckily, Angua stepped in, having recovered from her brief excursion into a happy imaginary world where _Corporal Nobbs_ was the werewolf in the big happy family that was the Watch.

"We're not watching you. We're watching to see what happens to you."

Well, that could have been put more tactfully. Too late now, though. It wasn't her fault - she had obviously been shaken up. For that matter, so had he. _Nobby._

"Because of this," Vimes added helpfully, slapping the newspaper (and not without a certain amount of relish, at that).

"But I'm not doing anything wrong," said de Worde, looking suddenly lost. Vimes rolled his eyes.

"No, it may just be you're not doing anything illegal. Although you're coming damn close. Other people do not have my kind and understanding disposition -" suspicious cough from the sergeant, Vimes made a note to give her patrol with aforementioned corporal for that "- though. All I ask is that you try not to bleed all over the street."

Yes, Sybil would kill me, he added silently. Not that she's not already going to with that bloody manual she still hasn't given back to me.

"I'll try," said William de Worde, with just a hint of a grin.

"And don't write that down."

"Fine."

"And don't write down that I said don't write that down," Vimes continued, mindful that this was the person who had mangled a perfectly harmless "The kitchens are that way" into permission to snoop all the way up to the Oblong Office.

"Okay," said de Worde cheerfully. "Can I write down that you said I shouldn't write down that you said - only joking," the lad added hastily, and wisely. Vimes looked completely humorless in a way that had taken him years of practice.

"Haha," he said. "And no tapping my officers for information."

"And no giving dog biscuits to Corporal Nobbs," said Angua. Vimes was about to reaffirm that last - it was the most important, after all, but she was already saying something else. "The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret?"

"Printer's error," said de Worde curtly. Sore spot, hmm? "Anything else I shouldn't do, Commander?"

"Just don't get in the way," said Vimes, who was suddenly tired of the whole damn business, of having to _act._

"I'll make a - I'll remember," said the lad. He was learning. "But if you don't mind me asking, what's in it for me?"

Tired of acting. Yes. So he wouldn't bloody act.

"I'm the commander of the Watch and I'm asking you politely."

"And that's it?"

Ha! What more did he want? "I could ask you impolitely, Mr. de Worde." Vimes sighed. "Look, can you see things my way?"

Of course he couldn't. Vimes gave him a brief summation of events anyway, because of the good old kind and understanding disposition again.

And of course, de Worde would interrupt him when he mentioned Drumnknott's, er, being put into custody.

"But wasn't he the victim, sir?"

"One of my men is tending him." Men. Well. Roughly, anyway. Vimes was _pretty _sure Igor hadn't transplanted any bits from other species, after all...

"Not one of the city doctors?"

The notebook, for some reason, drew the eye at times like these."The doctors of this city are a fine body of men and I will not see a word written against them," he said flatly. "One of my staff just happens to have... special skills."

"You mean he can tell someone else's arse from their elbow?"

De Worde wasn't the only one who could learn a lesson. Vimes stared fixedly at the wall. The last comment was nothing, after all, the Nobby The Wonder Werewolf.

"Can I ask you another question?"

"Nothing will stop you, will it?" He could always get Detritus to use the good old Piecemaker and say it was an accident, trouble was they'd probably lose most of the property, too...

"Have you found Lord Vetinari's dog?"

Lord Vetinari's dog.

No, as a matter of fact, they hadn't. Angua had mentioned an empty basket, and Vimes had certainly found the room a lot more fragrant than usual -

"Dog?" he said, after the briefest of pauses.

"Wuffles, I believe he's called," de Worde tried.

Wuffles. That was it. So. The dog is missing -

"A terrier, I think," the lad added. Vimes noted the careful appendages of "I think" and "I believe", but mostly he was thinking of a certain arrow, deeply embedded in hardwood floors of the office.

As if reading his thoughts, de Worde said, "Why was there a crossbow bolt sticking out of the floor? That doesn't make sense to me, unless there was someone else in the room. And it had gone in a long way. That's not a rebound. Someone was firing at something on the floor. Dog-sized, perhaps?"

Bloody, bloody hells. But it was good news too, in a way. If only he could think...

"And then there's the peppermint. There's a puzzle. I mean, why peppermint? And then I thought, maybe someone didn't want to be traced by their smell? Perhaps they'd heard about... your werewolf, too? A few jars of peppermint oil thrown down would confuse things a bit?"

That, at least, wasn't a mystery. But it was so on the mark it made him check, in the hopes the man's guesses were wrong... no. Right in every particular, as far as the Watch's sterling analysis could tell. Damn and damn again. He did not like this; he did not like this _at all._

He spoke.

"I don't trust you, Mr. de Worde. And I've just realized why. It's not just that you're going to cause trouble." Although that was a sizable chunk of it, he knew. "Dealing with trouble is my job, it's what I'm paid for, that's why they give me an armor allowance. But who are you responsible to? I have to answer for what I do... although right now I'm damned if I know who to. But you? It seems to me you can do whatever the hell you like."

"I suppose I'm answerable to the truth, sir."

Vimes almost - but not quite - laughed at last. "Oh, really? How, exactly?"

"Sorry?" A blank look on de Worde's part.

"If you tell lies, does the Truth come and smack you on the face. I'm impressed. Ordinary everyday people like me are responsible to other people. Even Vetinari always had -" and there was the past tense, creeping in... "-_has _one eye on the Guilds. But you... you are answerable to the Truth. Amazing. What's its address? Does it read the paper?"

"She, sir," said Angua, reminding him with her expression to breathe deeply and not blow up all over the poor Newsy Person. "There's a goddess of Truth, I believe."

"Can't have many followers, then. Except for... our friend here**(b)**."

Okay. Time to _think, _for once.

We need to find that damn dog. Angua can talk to dogs, I know, and if it was there... Vetinari was framed. I'm clear on that by now, even if we can't prove it. Even if I'm mildly reluctant about it, he added to himself, because he was an honest man.

"Supposing," he said at last, "just supposing, you came into possession of a line drawing of... a dog. Could you print it in your paper?"

"We are talking about Wuffles, are we?"

"Could you?" said Vimes firmly.

"I'm sure I could."

"We would be interested in knowing why he barked just before the... event."

"And if you could find him, Corporal Nobbs could speak to him in dog language, yes?"

It was really touch-and-go this time, but he made it in perfect soberness, which was the important bit.

"We could get a drawing of the dog to you in an hour."

"Thank you," said de Worde, who, bizarrely, seemed genuinely grateful, but asked the next question anyway. "Who is running the city at the moment, Commander?"

"I'm just a copper," said Vimes automatically. "They don't tell me these things. But I imagine a new Patrician will be elected. It's all laid down in the city statutes."  
"Who can tell me more about them?"

"Mr. Slant is your man there," said Vimes, with real joy and happiness. He smiled pleasantly. "Very helpful, I believe. Good afternoon, Mr. de Worde. Sergeant, show Mr. de Worde out, will you?"

Of course, de Worde didn't go that easily. No, _he _wanted to see Vetinari, who, thank the gods, was still unconscious, and the man's clerk, who unfortunately (it was unkind, but true) wasn't. Finally he was packed off to the cells to interview Drumknott, the poor man, with Angua as chaperone. Against Vimes' wishes, but what could you do with Newsy People?

If you were Vimes, you could send Buggy after them. 'Cos Angua was the visible chaperone, but, well, it was good to have back-up, wasn't it?

Then he sat back and thought, long and hard, about what exactly must have happened that morning. Who would shoot a poor, defenseless doggy?

A very stupid man, he thought. Okay. It's a start.

**(a) Euphemistically known, among the Watch, as "I've had a long day and you're in my way"/"It's 6:00 and you're still on the thoroughfare to Scoone Avenue?"**

**(b) Once again, a recorded case where the person calling the other person "friend" was not in any way friendly towards the other person at all.**


	5. Mr Scrope's Adventure

**Mr. Scrope's Adventure With Zombies and Werewolves And Catalogues, Oh My!**

_In which Mr. Scrope comes inadvertently to the forefront of several important personages' minds, and the Watch concludes that weighing money is very important indeed_

In the city of Ankh-Morpork, there was a street.

The street was known as Wixon's Alley. Note the capital 'A' in Alley: as it suggests, the street was not, in fact, an alley. On the contrary, it was quite a broad street, well paved, and lined with flourishing young apple trees**(a).** It did, admittedly, narrow and turn slightly at one end, which was the only hint of its disrespectable origins as a mere _alleyway._

One of the two buildings between which Wixon's Alley had begun was Wixon's Home For The Criminally Insane, the kindly institution that had given the alley its name. The other was one Scrope's Olde Established Shoppe For Marital Aids And Other Sundry Household Items.

It was a respectable brownstone building, with a respectable fence and respectable, if wilting,shrubberies and an _extremely _respectable staff. The owner, Mr. Tuttle Scrope, was (if that is possible) even more respectable than his staff, shrubberies, fence, and building combined. Nevertheless, some people would insist on coming by the back way and looking furtive. In fact, Mr. Scrope sometimes thought during a rare moment of introspection, the only people who came in the front way were the young ladies with the brightly colored clothing and the handbags. He didn't know why. It was just a sort of general rule.

Which had been quite thoroughly broken by the gentleman who had just entered.

Mr. Scrope was not, in fact, present to see this landmark moment, but his oldest son Tupper**(b)** was, and Tupper, who had been trained in being a people-person, greeted the gentleman with a broad smile and a "Hello, sir, and what can I help you with -" before stopping, because he had just seen the newcomer properly for the first time.

It was a zombie. He could tell by the way it was greenish, and had just coughed up a moth.

"Uh," he said, and tried to think quickly, but all he could think was 'what on _earth _is a _zombie _doing in a shop that sells... leather objects?'

The zombie didn't answer his question, but instead said "May I speak to Mr. Scrope?"

"Er... yes..." mumbled Tupper, and hurried away to find his father.

In fact Scrope was sitting at his desk, glaring at a crumpled paper on which was a less than satisfactory design for a new Little Jiggly Thing.

"Dad?" said Tupper.

"What?" snapped Mr. Scrope.

"Um... someone to see you..."

"What?"

"I know. Um..."

"Yes? Yes? What is it?"

"A zombie."

"A _zombie?_"

"An honest-to-god zombie."

"Gods above," said Scrope. "Did it say what it wanted?"

"_He, _dad. We're in the Century of the Fruitbat, 'member?"

"Right, right. Did _he _say what he wanted?"

"Nope. Just 'May I speak to Mr. Scrope?' He didn't sound too happy about it either."

"Alright. Send him up, will you?"

"Yes, dad."

Tupper disappeared down the stairs.

After a while, the zombie came up them. Mr. Scrope, happily (for him), was prepared, and merely said

"Afternoon, what can I do for you?"

The zombie glanced around the room in what Mr. Scrope thought was an unnecessarily contemptuous manner, then looked down its-_his_ nose at him and said

"I am Mr. Slant. If you could come with me, Mr. Scrope," said the self-proclaimed Mr. Slant, in a way that could not really be construed as a question. Well, Mr. Slant... even Mr. Scrope had heard of Mr. Slant. A lawyer, eh?

"Where?" he said.

"The Patrician's Palace," said the lawyer, stiffly. Despite the flat way he said it, Mr. Scrope nevertheless managed to almost break his chair in his hurry to get out of it.

"_What?_"

"The Pa-tri-cian's Pa-lace," the zombie replied, enunciating carefully and slowly. Scrope missed the not-so-subtle implication, as he was too busy goggling. He had a good face for goggling: round, flabby, and sprinting to pinkness. His eyes were naturally a tad bulgy, and now they were positively bursting forth from their sockets.

Mr. Slant did not appreciate goggling or gogglers. He coughed again. "If you would be so kind as to _follow _me, Mr. Scrope."

"Er... yes," said Mr. Scrope. "Right. Yes."

He did, in fact, follow the damned zombie down the steps and out his nice, friendly, family institution into the chill wintry air, stumbling slightly as he went.

**(a) Forged from wrought-iron and glued to the concrete sidewalks at the behest of one Sir Joshua Lavish, who often had business down the street, was a touch eccentric, and became bored easily. What, you thought there were real live flourishing trees in Ankh-Morpork?**

**(b) Named according to the fine old traditions of the ancient, well-established Scrope family, which were, in essence, 'start with the letters t and u and then work your way up from there'.**

--

Elsewhere, in Pseudopolis Yard, Vimes had just finished debriefing Angua, who was just now heading down the stairs with the happy little smile of one intent on making someone else's life - in this case several someones - a living hell for a brief but satisfying period of time.

"Right, everybody!" she said loudly. "Listen up!"

Half a dozen faces**(a)** looked up, and many were the variations on "Who, me?" expressions to be seen.

"Mister Vimes wants to know who's running the book."

There was a heavy silence, in which a lot of people were doing some very quick thinking.

"...book?" risked Detritus, who was sitting in a corner, writing his report**(b)**.

"A betting book," said Angua, patiently.

"Oh, der _betting_ book? Der one Nobby -"

No one bothered to shush him. It was a lost cause, after all, and who would stand up for _Nobby_?

"Thank you," said Angua briskly, with a, well, let's admit it, a wolfish grin. "Now, can anyone tell me where Nobby is?"

"He's nicking the petty cash," Constable Grabthroat, a dwarf officer, helpfully.

"He's - how do you know? I thought he's given up on a regular schedule**(d)**?" said Angua, briefly paused by genuine curiosity in her superior officer-approved wrath.

"Yes, but he told me just a minute ago how _very much _he wanted that new catalogue from some shop or other and how he only needed a few dollars..."

"I see," said Angua, sighing. "Right. Thank you, Constable."

She made her way into the back room while behind her, there was a gentle rustling as six officers sagged with relief. Angua had picked up certain useful knacks from her commander, and one of them was the ability to exude a field of casual threat while looking pleasant and smiling, and was assisted in it by the natural talent for it that known werewolves tend to have.

And there, indeed, she found Nobby, groping around in the petty cash tin. She had been padding along silently, but now she said,

"Oh, _Nobby..."_

He jumped and whirled around. "Er... yes, sarge?"

"Mister Vimes is not happy, Nobby."

Nobby paled under his several skin diseases. "Ohshit."

"It's not that bad," she said, relenting somewhat. "He just says to stop running the book on Mr. de Worde, he doesn't approve of that sort of thing."

"Oh. Is that all?" said Nobby, relaxing. He had faced much worse things, especially when Mister Vimes was not happy.

"I think so," said Angua. Duty over, she turned to leave, then paused and glanced back over her shoulder at Nobby's clenched fist. "Here, isn't that more than you normally take?"

"Just a bit," said Nobby pleadingly.

"What do you need it for, exactly?"

"Er..."

"C'mon, tell."

"Mr. Scrope's published a new catalogue," Nobby muttered, looking wretched. Or rather, looking even more wretched than usual, because when did Nobby not look wretched?

Angua frowned slightly. "Mr. Scrope... help me out here, Nobby. Who's this Scrope fellow? The name sounds familiar..."

"Er... he... runs that shop..."

"_Which _shop?"

"Theshopforma-ri-talaids," he blurted out, but very quietly.

"The... oh. _Oh._"

"Yeah."

Angua stared at him, fascinated in a horrible sort of way**(e) **by the concept. "Why? What do... uh..."

"I like the perfumes there," Nobby admitted. "And the scented wallies're nice."

There are some questions that have to be asked. "The _scented wallies_?"

"Oh, yeah," said Nobby, gaining some enthusiasm as he realized that she wasn't immediately intent on running away. Yet. "They add lots o' atmosphere to me bedroom."

I am not hearing this, thought Angua. Then she thought it a second time, for good measure.

"...good. Right. Good. Carry on, then," she said, in a voice that was only slightly strangled.

"Are you all right, Sarge?" said Nobby, sounding honestly concerned.

"Yes. Fine. Just... fine," she said, and removed herself as hurriedly as she could without hurting his feelings. She told Ping (very quickly) that she was going on patrol, then she ran outside, where she stopped to lean against the wall and laugh until she cried.

**(a) In some cases, 'faces' may be stretching the term. What could be seen beneath the helmets of the average dwarf officer was probably better termed as 'a beard with nose and eyes'.**

**(b) Or rather, breaking pencils, because he _was _a troll and had the average literacy thereof(c). He did make an effort though, and some of his little sketches of the convicts he had caught that day were quite good, in a minimalist sort of way. Vimes, for one, used Detritus' reports to break up the monotony when it was a particularly dull day in the city, although he did not, it must be said, often need to.**

**(c) That is to say, he knew at least 13 letters out of 26 and could piece together simple words like 'stop' or 'no!' in writing, more if he was given a few hours.**

**(d) Sometime before Vimes' recent excursion to Uberwald, Nobby had started giving up on the whole sneaking into the back room and furtively lifting a few dollars from the tin, and had instead posted a calendar in the front room announcing when, exactly, he would be pinching some dough, to the minute. He stuck to this schedule strictly until one day, when Vimes was in a particularly bad mood, he entered the room to find his commander leaning against the wall, smoking contemplatively, with a pleasant smile on his face. This experience scared him so badly that he immediately reverted to his old, irregular, unpredictable (relatively), Nobbsish ways.**

**(e) An emotion that Nobby certainly tended to evoke in most people.**

--

In fact, Angua's little discussion with Nobby turned out to be quite fortuitous for the Watch, on the whole, because had she not been on patrol just then, she would never have seen Mr. Scrope and Mr. Slant on their uneasy way towards the Palace, and would never have, on a whim and a hunch, followed them.

She also eavesdropped in on their conversation, on basic principles. This is what she heard:

"Mr. Scrope, it is imperative that you do not mention what you will learn at the Palace to anyone until otherwise notified."

Well, _that's _interesting, thought Angua, making a mental note and walking a little faster. Then she realized what Mr. Slant had called the other man, and was almost caught when she walked into someone because she was laughing so hard. Again. Luckily, while Mr. Scrope whipped around (he was, it must be said, a little jumpy), Mr. Slant continued onward unperturbed, and Angua was able to continue... patrolling.

"Er... why?" said the obviously intimidated Mr. Scrope.

"If I told you here, that would make the whole exercise rather pointless, would it not?" said the lawyer, coolly.

"Er... would it?"

The zombie sighed, as only a zombie can sigh, and walked on, but Angua had excellent hearing and was pretty sure she caught a muttered 'live people these days.'

It wasn't long before the trio had arrived at the flagstones before the palace**(a)**, Angua trailing behind at a safe distance of about ten feet. The two ahead of her entered, and she faced a dilemma. Plainclothes or nonchalant 'I'm _obviously _supposed to be here, you peon' walk? the eternal conundrum. Eventually, she went for nonchalant walk - she could probably get close enough to wherever they were discussing things, and if they found her, well, she was investigating on behalf of Commander Vimes, so what?

She went in. She did, indeed, make it to within earshot (for a werewolf) of where some important men were... discussing things. And she listened very, very hard.

**(a) Which were, if you care, of unusual size and slightly dished in the middle. But neither Mr. Scrope, Mr. Slant, or Angua knew this, because all three of them actually wore boots with soles.**

--

Unfortunately, for reasons concerning dramatic narrative and suspense, we must now cut away from the eavesdropping werewolf and attend to other watchmen. Specifically, _the _watchman on top of the highly metaphorical heap.

Vimes was sitting at his desk, staring at his notebook. The page was blank, which was not a good thing.

Stupid facts, he thought. And a stupid man.

He had a gut feeling, of course, but he couldn't take a gut feeling to a court of law. And right now, right here, he needed something he could take to a court of law, even if that imaginary court was only that of public opinion. You _couldn't _just say 'he didn't do it.' There had to be a why. And a scapegoat, for that matter.

He sighed, still staring blankly at the page in front of him.

Something solid...

It hadn't always been that way, no. In the _old _Watch, there wasn't much more to anything than gut feeling. And there were cases where he could work on hunches alone. But this was not one of them. This was big. This was huge, in fact. The whole world, if not watching at this moment, had, as it were, the potential to start watching at any given time. Particularly certain Very Important Citizens in this damn city. This time, too, the whole damn Ankh-Morpork City Watch, in the state it was today, was on the line, not just his own neck. Change in lead always meant a change in the way the world was run, after all, although he got the sense that there would always be a time After Vetinari and Before Vetinari, and the After Vetinari world wasn't going to be the same old dog-eat-dog one it had always been. As violent, of course, but probably subtler about it. He shook his head. Fine. Solid facts it was. He could do that.

He scribbled certain words that would have made little sense to anyone but him. He frowned. He shook his head. He tore papers up. He wrote more things down.

'Money.' Why would Vetinari want money? But that wasn't something he could prove...

Sacks of money on the horse's back. In genuine Ankh-Morpork dollar coins, too, not just bank drafts.

Not just bank drafts...

It hit him.

"_Coins_," he snarled, to himself. "Bags and bags of bloody coins! CARROT!"

The Captain came running up.

"Sir?"

"How much does a dollar coin weigh?" Vimes barked at him.

"Er... about half an ounce, sir..."

"Half an ounce," said Vimes, closing his eyes. "And... how many dollars was Vetinari taking with him...?"

"About 70,000 dollars -" Carrot started. His expression changed. "That would be -"

"Yes," Vimes agreed. He lit a match. "That would be a very heavy set of bags for one poor horse to carry."

"Dxmn," said Carrot**(a)**.

"Exactly," said Vimes, and bit down on his cigar with the beginnings of a smile.

**(a) Who had special talents in certain linguistic areas, especially when it came to avoiding swearing, which was Not Decent in Carrot's personal, rosy little world that no one else inhabited.**


	6. Mr Scrope's Adventure, Cont'd

**Mr. Scrope's Adventure, Cont'd: Why Smelling Salts Are Useful In The Office**

_In which Mr. Scrope ruins a carpet and Vimes listens to a soon-to-be-rumor_

On an anthropomorphic level, Dramatic Narrative and Suspense argued with An Actual Coherent Plot and were summarily steam-rolled by it.

On a substantially less metaphorical level, one Sergeant Angua was pressing a cautious ear**(a) **to the door of the Oblong Office, where certain matters of extreme interest to her - and her boss - were being discussed.

But because it would be so boring to hear it from her point of view, let the eye of imagination draw closer...

**(a) Er. That is to say, she was cautiously pressing an ear to the door. Not that her ear was particularly cautious, which it was not, because it was, after all, an ear and ears are not, as a rule, very cautious things(b), no matter what they are hearing.**

**(b) Except for the Great Big Wuss O' An Ear of 1301, which was believed to have evolved somewhere deep in the bowels of the Ramtops and which was only seen by humans twice, generally as it ran away on tiny legs from whatever new terror it had come across (it had an uncanny gift for finding terrors). The thing was eventually killed and eaten by a Lipwigzer who had escaped its owner's leash two days earlier and returned home without a noticeable difference except possibly for a slightly increased rotundity about the stomach region(c). **

**(c) Constable Igor of the AMCW had speculated briefly about the creature's behavior and what ramifications that had on his little Ears, but in the end he decided that the coincidence was probably meaningless. Lots of things, after all, ran around on little legs, and anyways the Ears' ones fell off.**

--

"Mr. Scrope," said Slant.

"Er, yes?" said Scrope, sweating profusely. So profusely, in fact, that little rivulets of the stuff were running off his shiny, shiny new boots.

"These are the gentlemen who wish to speak with you."

"Er..."

"Lord Downey," said the zombie, indicating with a slight nod the white-haired, friendly looking, top hat wearing old gentleman whose image was marred slightly by the clink of metal when he moved and the fact that Scrope, as a Guild president, _knew _that the man was the head of the Assassins' Guild.

Not (apparently) discerning Scrope's less than flattering thoughts, Downey nodded at him. "Good day to you."

"Mr. Boggis," Slant went on, before Scrope could make any sort of reply. That would be the plump, genial fellow in the bowler. Scrope, as a merchant, had always felt a sort of kinship with the thief, but just now that wasn't a very comforting thought, because merchants and thieves were, well, merchants and thieves, and among that sort kinship just meant 'someone I wouldn't _immediately _sell for good money.'

Another person was stepping forward, with enough jiggling flesh and exposed skin for two, and a chin he would know anywhere. Before the damn lawyer could even start, he said, in what he thought was quite a polite and composed fashion,

"Ah, Mrs. Palm. A pleasure to see you again."

This didn't seem to sound quite as suave yet gentlemanly as he had meant it to. A titter swept through the room. There were, he realized, quite a few people here.

"Mm," said Mrs. Palm, in a way that was, if he wasn't mistaken, far too lascivious for a woman of her age. "Likewise, Mr. Scrope."

She hadn't sounded that way _last _time he'd met her**(a)**, he thought, trying to shrink in on himself as a second, slightly forced, titter emanated from the collected persons' direction.

"Hmph," said Mr. Slant, and the introductions continued. There were more than a dozen people, all told. By the end of it, Scrope was quite dizzy and was starting to wish for a decent breath of fresh air**(b)** _not _polluted with all that damn perfume and cologne and formaldehyde**(c)**.

"...and Lord de Worde," Mr. Slant finished.

Tuttle Scrope was not an observant man. If he had been, however, he might have noticed the subtle edge that entered into the zombie's voice as he spoke the name. He might have noticed the way that everyone else pointedly did _not _fall silent, did _not _move aside for the man to come through - but jerked in a way that suggested that they almost had. He might have noticed the way de Worde held himself, or looked about him.

Tuttle Scrope was not an observant man, so he noticed none of those things.

But Sergeant Angua was. And anyone listening carefully would have heard a very quiet gasp.

So it was, all in all, a _good _thing for her that Lord de Worde chose that moment to say, "And you are... Scrope?"

To Mr. Scrope, however, it certainly didn't seem like a good thing. At all. Because at that moment he was forced to stare up into a pair of eyes, and because Mr. Scrope _was _able to notice some things, he saw that they belonged to a man who cared about him in the same way that he cared about a bug on the bottom of one of his perfect shoes, which was to say that he cared about him only in the sense that he was utterly and entirely contemptuous of him.

It almost as bad as being stared at by Vetinari, Scrope thought, and was momentarily brightened up by the fact that the way things were going, it seemed he'd never have to go through _that _again. Then he met the terrible grey eyes once more and exuded another pint of sweat.

He realized, after the stuff had soaked through a good portion of the carpet, that everyone seemed to be waiting for something. He couldn't for the life of him remember what, though, and Mr. Slant was eventually forced to step in.

"Yes, this is Mr. Scrope," the zombie said in his dry dead rasping voice.

"I see," said Lord de Worde, thoughtfully. Then something about his bearing changed. Mr. Scrope got the impression that this was his official face. It was not a helpful impression.

"Mr. Scrope," he said, suddenly bright and cheerful, "you see about you some of our most respected citizens."

"Er... yes?"

"_And they and I believe,_" de Worde continued, less amiably, in a _be quiet, little bug _voice, "that you would be an ideal Patrician for the new Ankh-Morpork."

"...what?"

"We believe," the man said, now quite testily, "that you would be an ideal Patrician for the new Ankh-Morpork."

"Oh," said Mr. Scrope weakly, and fainted.

**(a) You don't want the details. Really. It's ugly and unpleasant and messy and involves malfunctioning little jiggly things. Obviously you don't want the details.**

**(b) Which he would have had to pay quite a lot for, in this city. But he was a merchant, and could afford it. Besides, only last month he'd bought a whole tank of Special Pseudopolis Compressed Air, there should still be _some _left.**

**(c) That would be Mrs. Palm, Dr. Downey, and Mr. Slant, respectively.**

--

Outside, Angua waited for a bit. When she heard the false shrieks and cries of "the poor man!" she decided it was her cue to leave.

She made her way back down the street, perhaps slightly less nonchalantly than previously (but who can blame her?). Once out on the good honest cobblestones, she inhaled deeply**(a)**, blanched, and then set off at a run.

She reached the Yard in record time and burst through the doors with a bang.

"Angua?" said Carrot, looking up from one of the desks, where he had been dutifully writing out his latest report, with some effort and lots of commas.

"Where's Vimes?" she snapped, too agitated for exchanging pleasantries.

"It's a nice day for a run, isn't it?" said Carrot. He said it very politely, and he _probably _didn't deserve the retribution Angua threatened him with.

"Tell me where Vimes is, Carrot," she growled, "now. Or I will beat you to death with your Protective."

"Up in his office," he said, looking hurt. "But why would you do that? That wouldn't be a very nice thing to do."

"Sorry," she replied distractedly, and was racing up the stairs before he could begin to formulate a suitably pithy yet intensely block-headed response, which was probably a good thing, all things considered. It also meant, however, that he didn't get a chance to tell her that the Commander was Thinking.

"Sir!" she said, slamming the door open.

He didn't even look up. It occurred to her that the room was filled with smoke. This occurred to her, it must be said, _after _she started coughing.  
So much for the famous werewolf senses, she thought. Bloody hells.

"Sir," she said, slightly more calmly, if hoarsely. She snapped her fingers under his nose. "Sir? Commander?"

Blank look, more smoke.

"Disc to Mister Vimes."

"Wha...oh, hello, Angua."

Angua kept a straight face, with effort. "I have something to report, sir."

He looked slightly more alert and less like a man who had just been woken up from a hypnotic trance at 3:00 in the morning, to boot. "What is it?"

"They're planning to make Mr. Scrope Patrician."

"_What_?"

"I know."

Vimes stared at her and tried to sort through his thoughts in a way that didn't deserve a capital letter, it was so disorganized. "Scrope... Scrope... you don't mean Tuttle Scrope of Wixon's Alley, do you?"

"I'm afraid so, sir."

"The one with the... shop?"

"That's the one."

"Never mind what," said Vimes. "_Why?_"

"No idea," said Angua, shrugging.

Vimes nodded, slowly. "Figures." He frowned. "Where did you hear this, anyway?"

"Er... the Patrician's office."

"You were in the Oblong Office?"

"Er... no."

He waited patiently.

"Er... I was just outside."

"Oh?"

"Yes."

"Doing..."

"Important Watchmanly things."

"I see." He took another drag of his cigar. "Hmm. Who was there?"

"Well, Scrope, obviously -"

"Do I have to dock your armor allowance, sergeant?"

"Sorry, sir. There was also Slant, Downey, Boggis, Mrs. Palm, Rust..."

The list went on.

"...Miss Dixie Voom..."

"Who?"

"She's the head of the Exotic Dancers' Guild."

Vimes pinched the bridge of his nose. "Right. Of course. She would be."

"Try not to think about it, sir," said Angua, kindly. "Anyway. Miss Dixie Voom," he winced "Queen Molly, and..." her eyes glazed over slightly "...a black-silver shading to green, tasted like tin scent..."

"Some of us," said Vimes, "aren't werewolves who see with our noses."**(b)**

"Oh. Um. Right. I don't know him," she clarified.

"It was a him?"

"Yessir."

"Hmm," said Vimes. "Any ideas?"

"Not really," said Angua, thoughtfully. "The major Guild leaders and lords and so on are accounted for. Except for you, sir," she added, grinning at him.

He glared at her. "Your armor allowance is still on the line, sergeant."

"Of course, sir," said Angua cheerfully. "But really," she continued, "it's a bit odd. As a Duke you should have been invited to such a decision-making process."

Vimes shook his head. "I'm a Watch Commander first, which, while that's obviously how I prefer it, means that I'm an employee of the city, not an employer."

"You know this because...?"

"Are you accusing me of not being entirely devoted to and up to date in the Chivalrous Code and laws of our City, sergeant?"

"No_ sir._"

He snorted. "Right. Anyway, that's how they'll argue it anyway, and Slant's with them, so I don't think much of my chances even if I did want to involve myself in this bloody mess."

"Well, that's true, I suppose."

"Damn right it's true." He stood up, suddenly, and went to the window. Angua waited in silence. When Vimes got into one of his Moods**(c)**, it was best not to disturb him. Besides, he was looking in the right direction now.

"You've no idea who that man is?" he said, quietly, startling her.

"Not really," she said again. "Except..."

He turned to look at her.

"I've smelled a similar scent somewhere," she said.

"Where?"

"I don't know."

"Think."

She did. And... there was something... but the smells were always a roiling, wonderful, useless mess in human form, unless she concentrated. Nothing to fix on, just another flashing color-taste-sound-cum-scent among the many.

"I can't, sir," she said, finally.

Vimes sighed. "I didn't really think so. All right, then. Do you mind going back and seeing what's left to be found?"

"Nossir."

"You do that, then. And I'll set a couple gargoyles on Mr. Scrope." Vimes tried to remember Scrope from the last Council meeting, and recalled a vague impression of wobbling pink flesh and a vaguely good-natured expression under a mop of blond hair. "Not that he needs it, the poor bastard..."

Vimes was already sinking back into his reverie when Angua stopped at the door, looked back, and said "How goes the Vetinari case, sir?"

He glanced up, although one hand, she noticed, was still writing in his notebook. "Not very well, sergeant. And I have a feeling that it's only going to get worse."  
"Anything new?" she persisted.

"Yes. We discovered that Vetinari, and this is a man with a game leg we're talking about here, was trying to take what works about to be more than a ton of dollar coins. On horseback."

The werewolf put her head in her hands.

"What did I say?" said Vimes. "The fun is just beginning."

"It's so... stupid," she said, incredulously.

"I know."

"Vetinari wasn't stupid."

"Isn't stupid," he corrected her. "At least, assuming his 'nasty fall' didn't do his great big brain any damage."

"Right," she said distractedly. "I mean... it makes no sense. This is the man who outwitted the entire Klatchian government, isn't it?"

"And the Morporkian one as well," said Vimes drily. "But that isn't the point."

"No?"

"The point is that that's not going to be enough evidence to satisfy the public, haha."

"Since when have you worried about that? Sir."

He gave her a Look but conceded the point. "Not when Vetinari's the judge, no."

"Wha - oh."

"Yes, what exactly do you think Lord Rust would say when I told him that while I would entirely have believed that _he_ had committed such a completely inane crime, I had trouble thinking it of Vetinari..." Vimes mused, starting to look dreamy.

"Stop fantasizing about insulting Lord Rust, sir, it'll only end in trouble. Think of what your wife would say."

"Never say that again, sergeant," Vimes muttered. But he got back to his very important notebook-ly work, and Angua, reassured, went to see what there was to be found. Here and there.

**(a) It must be presumed that the good sergeant, like Scrope, felt the need for fresh air, but that the good sergeant, unlike Scrope, had no means of getting at it quickly and was forced to settle for the smog that is a clear day in Ankh-Morpork. It must also be presumed that the good sergeant had temporarily had her wits scrambled, because there was _no _other way a werewolf who had been in the city for more than an hour would have done something that incredibly stupid.**

**(b) Neither the first or last time he used that phrase.**

**(c) Which were capitalized for the same reason as his Thoughts, and were equally - if not more - dangerous to innocent bystanders.**


	7. The Various Definitions of Marital Aids

**The Various Definitions of Marital Aids **

_In which Commander Vimes faces someone much worse than the combined Guild heads and Angua does her best to avoid explaining the nature of Mr. Scrope's shop_

It was getting to be quite dark, if not very stormy. Vimes frowned at his watch (_bingle dingle ding-a-ling_). On the one hand, he was certainly concerned about Sybil, what with her being, well, pregnant. On the other hand, he was also concerned about Sybil in a rather different sense, e.g. how Sybil's proximity and his personal healthy were inversely proportional at the moment.

Vimes shook his head. How bad could it be, after all?

He paused, thought about that for a while, and then wished he hadn't. Well, he'd_ probably _live...

The speaking tube started making tinny little noises. He glared at it for a while. It started bouncing up and down in its hook. He sighed and picked it up.

"Yes?"

"Snastp."

"Who is this?"

"Fwisup? Wipple?"

"This is - oh, the hell with it. CARROT!" he snarled, dropping the bloody thing and walking over to pull the door open. "WHO'S TRYING TO USE THE DAMN SPEAKING TUBE?"

The sound of heavy footsteps floated up, and was followed by the footsteps' owner. "Er, me, sir," said Carrot, who had the decency to look mildly embarrassed.

"Of course you were. Obviously," said Vimes, who to be fair had had a long day. Besides, sarcasm slid off Carrot like water off an extremely oily duck. "Now that's sorted out, could you tell me why you were trying to use the bloody tubes?"

"It is the Century of the Fruitbat, sir -"

"Carrot!"

"Sorry, sir. Er, there's a new paper of news -"

"What, another one? But it can't have been more than three or four hours since -"

"Oh, no sir. It's a different paper."

Vimes did a double-take at that. "It's a what?"

"You'd better come and see, Mister Vimes..."

It was, indeed, a different paper. Vimes could tell because the great big bloody "Ankh-Morpork Inquirer" headline was being waved in his face by someone who was, in fact, one of his, er, informers**(a)**.

"Eyiiiinnnnggg... GUT!"

"Thank you," said Vimes. "Thank you very much. Why do you people feel the need to burst the eardrums of innocent passers-by? Is it some sort of hobby?"

"'Allo, Mister Vimes, sorry 'bout that, I din't see you there. What can I do for you?" said someone who turned out to be Quite Small Jack, a man Vimes knew as a pickpocket**(d) **under normal circumstances**, **though now he supposed the term would be pickpocket-turned-newspaper-seller.

"Hand that over."

"Two pence -"

"Hmm?" said Vimes, who was, as has been previously mentioned, not in a good mood.

"I gots a quota to fill, mister!" protested Quite Small Jack, not apparently registering the danger signals.

"You'll have more to fill than that if you don't give me that damn paper, believe me."

The man met Vimes' eye and sagged slightly. "Yes, sir. Here, sir."

Vimes unfolded it with unnecessary force and glared at the text. "Woman Gives Birth To Cobra? The hells? What is this?"

"I just sell it, sir. I dunno what it is."

"Hmph." Something occurred to Vimes. "Have you seen de Worde?"

"Wot's he look like?"

"Skinny, tall, big nose, carrying a notebook like you or I might carry a great big stick..."

"Oh! That 'un. Yes, he came to buy a paper."

"And?"

"Worl... he din't seem too happy 'bout it..."

"Ha. No, he wouldn't be." Vimes frowned at the flimsy sheet in his hands again. "Well, well. Tell me if you see him again, will you? And notify Blind Hareson and Daft Charlie and the rest."

"Yessir."

He started heading for Scoone Avenue, but had time to see Carrot apologetically give the man what was probably at least five pence before he went. He sighed. What was the point of being nasty and unjust and irritable when you had subordinates like Carrot around?

**(a) Which was not as much of a coincidence as it may sound. Most people of a certain social status ended up as an informer to the Watch, one way or another(b), because Vimes liked to know what the rumor on the street was and whether it was time to kill it dead yet.**

**(b) Many of these were extremely interesting and sometimes even involved ginger beer, in extreme cases. Necessity is truly the mother of invention, although who the father is it's impossible to say, as invention most closely resembles the milkman(c) down the corner...**

**(c) That being Mr. Ronnie Soak, obviously, since these are anthropomorphic personifications we're talking about here.**

**(d) i.e., one step lower than a cutpurse but one step higher than, say, your average bartender.**

--

Angua returned from her second foray into the exciting world of a Palace in turmoil with a thoughtful expression on her face. She found the Watch house quieter than usual, filled with the intense not-quite-silence of lots of people not really working as they waited for their shifts to end. Carrot, however, was rather ruining the effect with his intent scribbling**(a)**.

"Evening, Carrot," she said, quietly.

"Angua?" He looked up. "Vimes said you were out on important business..?"

She grinned a bit at that. "Yes, but I'm done now. Is he here?"

"You just missed him."

"Damn." She paused. "Has he filled you in on what's happened?"

"Not really. He seemed rather agitated."

"Yes, well, he has reason. They're trying to make Mr. Scrope Patrician."

"Tuttle Scrope? Owner of Scrope's Olde Established Shoppe For Marital Aids And Other Sundry?"

"Er... yes. You know about... that?" said Angua carefully, keeping in mind Carrot's opinions on, for instance, wallies.

"I haven't visited it personally, but I've heard lots of good things about it," said Carrot cheerfully. Angua had a sudden coughing fit.

"Are you all right?"

"Er... yes," said Angua. "Perfectly all right. Er. _Who _have you heard good things about it from?"

"My friend Reese," said Carrot. "And Nobby, of course. I thought it was a bit odd that he would know about it, actually. Is he getting married, do you know?"

"I really hope not. Er... do you know what marital aids are, Carrot?"

"Oh, yes. They're those little things people use in weddings, aren't they? You know, like the little couple they always put on the top of their cakes," he said blithely.

She looked at him, and wondered whether she should face the overwhelming shame of explaining..._ It _to him like a man or whether she should back down like a sensible coward. She debated for a moment, but in the end the sensible cowardliness won through. As usual.

"Er, right," she said, giving up. "Yes. Just so."

"I've always wondered why he was in the Guild of Leather-Workers, though," said Carrot, looking puzzled. "I mean, it's not as if you get very much leather at weddings, do you?"

Someone, who once they were identified by Angua was certainly very doomed indeed, murmured "At weddings, no. Immediately afterwards, though..."

Carrot looked even more puzzled. "Huh?"

Angua shot a quick glare in the direction of as many watchmen as possible, all of whom looked suddenly innocent, then shrugged with exaggerated casualness and said, "I have no idea. Maybe people buy special... uh... shoes?"

"That'd probably be it," said Carrot, all suspicions instantly absolved.

"Yes, of course," she replied, with such intense relief that she barely noticed the quiet snickering of watchmen behind her. There was an awkward silence on his part while she suppressed all remaining wild laughter that might be trying to bubble up in the back of her throat.

"Scrope is going to be Patrician?" he prompted her, finally.

"Yes. Right. Yes," she said.

"The Guild members have all decided, then?"

"Uh, no. It's not official yet. They haven't even met, officially, or voted. But things seem to be leaning that way, certainly."

"Well, I'm sure they represent the will of the people and are making the best possible decision," said Carrot gravely. "But... Vetinari hasn't been proven guilty yet, has he?"

"Hasn't been proven innocent yet either."

"There is the evidence of the very heavy bags of coin," said Carrot.

"Yes, but that's not enough to sway a jury."

"According to Amendment 328, sec. ii, juries are technically illegal within the perimeter of the Cities of Ankh and Morpork -"

"I mean that it's not enough to convince people."

"No," he said, more quietly. "I suppose not. Perhaps you should tell me the rest in the morning?"

Angua looked around at the listening watchmen, who very abruptly started busying themselves with their reports. She swore. The rumor would probably be running wild by morning... well, too late now.

"All right. But there's not much more to tell."

"Even so," said Carrot. They went up.

"So?" he said.

"I... they're all very cautious."

"What does _that _mean?"

"I mean they're all dancing very carefully around the whole business. And it makes me wonder."

"You don't think they might have had a hand in this business, do you?" said Carrot, sounding genuinely shocked. Maybe a little too genuinely shocked - but Angua tried not to think about that possibility. It reminded her too much of bloody Uberwald.

"Unfortunately, yes. Not all of them. But they aren't exactly very sorry to see Vetinari gone, are they?"

"They acted like that when he was poisoned, too, remember?"

"Fair enough," Angua admitted. "Still, we should keep an eye on them."

"We're rather stretched, though. I don't know who I can send at this point."

"We can always get some of the street ears**(b)** to do it."

"Well, maybe. I'll see if I can get some of the Willies**(d)** on it."

"You do that." He was probably the only one who could, at this point. Carrot had an unnatural gift for rounding people up, although he would probably have called it 'gathering them to this place for a friendly discussion of any services they would be willing to provide.'

"Angua?" said Carrot, after a moment of blessed quiet.

"What?"

"Do you think Mister Vimes is all right? He seemed unusually, well..."

"Tetchy?"

"Oh, I would never think such a thing," said Carrot hurriedly. "But I did think the strain might be getting to him a little..."

She shrugged. "I wouldn't be surprised. What else is new?"

They fell silent again, contemplating deep thoughts. Their reveries were interrupted, however, when a joyful screech rose from below, in the dulcet tones of Nobby Nobbs.

"Yessssss!"

Carrot and Angua looked at each other, and put their heads in their hands in unison. Angua excused herself first, however, lest Nobby be holding something with the potential to scar Carrot's innocent mind - though Carrot tended to recover from big shifts in his worldview fairly quickly, in the same way that a gyroscope can be joggled quite a lot without changing its spin in the long run.

It turned out to have been a wise move, because Nobby was, in fact, standing in the middle of the floor, doing a bizarre little victory dance, the catalogue of Scrope's Olde Established Shoppe For Marital Aids And Other Sundry clutched in one grubby paw.

**(a) "And, then I with, the help of Constable Grabthoat aprehendded, thee Villianous Bank Rober and, read him his Rights until he Begged for, Mercy v. peculairly..."**

**(b) Not ears running around on little legs(c). Just people with ears, who were on the street (sometimes) and reported to the Watch for aforementioned various reasons.**

**(c) Although Igor hoped to one day turn some of his Ears to this purpose, and was breeding a particular population in the hopes of a strain where the legs didn't fall off after a week or so.**

**(d) A set of quintuplets, each of whom the mother thereof had named Willie, to avoid confusion.**

**--**

Vimes arrived at the Scoone Avenue manor just as night was really setting in, and as it was quite chilly out he hurried to unlock the door and get inside. Willikins materialized within moments.

"Would sir like a hot cocoa? I understand it is rather nippy out tonight."

"Sir mostly definitely would," said Vimes, hand Willikins his coat in a resigned sort of way. He hesitated. "Er... if you could warn - I mean, if you could - that is to say, where's Sybil?"

"Oh, hallo there, Sam," said a very familiar voice. He looked up, slowly. Sybil was standing in the doorway of the Horribly Yellow Drawing Room, the one that opened up onto the hallway, smiling pleasantly at him.

"Er... hello, Sybil," he said.

"Very good, sir," said Willikins, apparently having come to the excellent conclusion that he ought to ignore that last bit, as all hope was gone for his master anyway. "Shall I bring the cocoa up to sir's bedroom?"

"Please," said Sybil cheerfully. "Make that two, would you, old chap?"

"Of course, ma'am," said Willikins, and dematerialized.

Vimes coughed. "Uh," he said, to no one in particular.

"Is there something wrong with your throat, Sam?"

"Uh. No."

"Is there something else wrong, Sam?"

"Er..."

"Then why aren't you coming inside properly?"

There was really no escape. He followed her up to their bedroom, which was admittedly comfortably warm thanks to the fire roaring, if not merrily, at least with passable jocularity, in the open hearth next to the bed. Unfortunately any comfort to be derived thereof was ruined by the fact that he kept having the urge to glance at the desk, looking for any sign of the Dis-Organizer's manual.

There was a pregnant pause. Like all pregnant pauses, it gave birth to more pauses, each more embarrassing than the rest. The metaphor was particularly unsettling in Sybil's current state...

"And how was your day?" said Sybil, sitting down on the sofa and patting the space next to her in an inviting sort of way. He looked at it as warily as a man looking at a live adder.

"Er... it was exciting," he said, probably sounding quite distracted. "In a dull sort of way."

"Hmm," said Sybil. "Poor Havelock. This whole business is very unpleasant."

"Yes, it is," he agreed. Somehow, it didn't seem quite as unpleasant just now. Relatively speaking.

"But I'm sure you and your men will come to the solution. You always do."

"Well, sometimes -"

The door opened. Willikins shimmered in. Vimes stopped sweating, or at least stopped sweating as noticeably. There was a happy but sadly brief moment in which both merely sipped their cocoa.

"And," said Sybil, the thud of her putting down her mug sounding like bells tolling out his doom to Vimes' hypersensitive ears, "I was reading about some _particularly _interesting cases in your manual..."

"Really?" he said, in what he desperately hoped was a mildly interested tone.

"Like the one where someone tried to bribe you and you broke four of their fingers..."

"Here now," Vimes protested, "they were trying to _bribe _me."

"Sam!"

"You know how I get when people try to bribe me, dear."

"That is _not _an excuse for violence, Sam."

"But -"

"No buts. I don't want to hear about any more broken fingers. It's not nice."

He choked on his cocoa. "Nice?"

"_Not _nice."

"This is - was the lawyer of a murderer we're talking about here!"

Her disapproving expression faded slightly. "Well, I suppose that makes it a _little _more understandable," she said, reluctantly. "Still, you should try to restrain yourself, Sam."

"Yes, dear."

"Even if they're trying to bribe you."

"Yes, dear."

"Even if they're a lawyer."

"Yes, dear."

"Are you listening to me, Sam?"

"Yes, dear."

"Oh, stop that. Good night," she said, punching him in the shoulder in what was probably an affectionate manner and making him spill cocoa all over his breeches. What concerned him more, however, were the words she whispered in his ear before finally retiring:

"_I'm barely halfway through yet._"


	8. Mr Slant and the Fearsome Four

**Mr. Slant and the Fearsome Four**

_In which Corporal Nobbs reveals his masterpiece and Lord Vetinari is pardoned, the poor man, it's the quiet ones that crack..._

A great big flaming ball of gas continued its extremely complicated orbit, traveling high above an even bigger disc of a world.

Or, if you so prefer, the sun rose.

In Ankh-Morpork, the bells were striking eight o' clock. At least, some of them were. By the law of averages, this was probably the closest to 'eight o' clock on the dot' that the city would get - late for a sunrise, but then in the slushy gut of winter that was Ankh-Morpork, the days were short. And throughout the city, as the light of dawn passed over them, windows flamed briefly red before fading.

Behind one thick pane of leaded glass, His Grace Commander Sir Samuel Vimes rolled over and snored quietly. Sybil, malicious joys of that which was not quite blackmail obliviated, for a time, by slumber, kicked him automatically in her sleep. He yelped and opened his eyes.

"That hurt," Vimes told his wife, who didn't notice, being still completely oblivious to the world in general. He looked at her for a while, decided that he definitely did _not _want to risk waking her up, and sat up, rubbing his shin. There was going to be a bruise there by tonight, he thought ruefully.

A few minutes later, he was carefully struggling into his breastplate, trying not to make enough noise to, just for instance, rouse Sybil. Unfortunately, his efforts were wasted, because at that very moment his finger caught in the buckle, and a surprised curse slipped from his lips before he could stop himself.

"Is something wrong?" said Sybil sleepily. He fancied that her voice had an ominous edge to it.

"Er, no," he replied. "Nothing whatsoever is wrong. All's well. Everything is so completely fine, in fact, that you could easily go back to sleep. You _should _go back to sleep," he added hopefully. "You must be tired from - from the baby and things."

"Not really," she said thoughtfully. "He's been quite good, really."

"Well, that's a relief - wait, he?" said Vimes, cowardly thoughts banished for the moment by puzzlement.

"Yes, he," she said, her voice tinged with, if he was not mistaken, a bit of stubbornness.

"Er... how do you know it's going to be a boy?"

"I just know," said Sybil serenely.

Vimes rubbed his eyes. "Right. Fine. Anyways. Still, sleep. Wonderful stuff, sleep. I'm sure Mrs.Content would approve of you going to sleep."

"Yes, dear. Perhaps I'll read until I doze off."

Damn. "Oh."

"Yes," Sybil agreed, reaching for a certain thick, heavy, extremely brick-like book**(a)**.

"I think I'll just be going," said Vimes innocently. "Lots of important things to be doing at the Yard!"

"I'm sure," she said, and pointedly turned a page. He took the opportunity to get the hell out of there, and, to his very slight subsequent shame, was running before the door had closed behind him.

**(a) One of the universal rules of happiness is: always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual. This works inversely, so that the greater the weight difference, the warier the owner should be. The reader may be interested to know that the net weight difference between the Dis-organizer and its manual was a quarter stone.**

**--**

Not too far away, Angua was struggling to comprehend the eternal mystery that was Nobby Nobbs.

"You... entered a contest," she said patiently.

"Yes, Sarge."

"For designing little jiggly things."

"Yes, Sarge."

Even she was silence for a moment by the huge, great, big, whopping enormity of the horror. Finally, she found the right word to voice it.

"_Why??"_

"'Cos I felt like it," said Nobby sullenly.

"But... but... I mean.. why do you know this stuff?"

He brightened slightly. "Oh, I know lots of stuff, miss. I used to hang out in Mr. Scrope's shop all the time when I were a kid. I didn't know wot was wot then, o' course, but later on..." His eyes took on the dreamy cast of one wandering blithely down Memory Lane while passers-by took one look and ran away screaming. Angua could sympathize with those passers-by.

"Oh, gods," she said, running a hand through her hair. Luckily, Nobby was too sunk in his disturbingly blissful memories to notice.

"Yes, those were the days," he muttered. "When I'd take the sample wally home to my mum and she'd throw them out the window and throw a shoe at me - Scrope's always _did _have good sample wallies, I remember old Sconner used to go digging around in the back yard when he had enough money for one of the Houses of Ill Repute..."

Angua hurried out with some half-articulated excuse and then leaned against the wall and laughed for five minutes.

"Are you all right, Sergeant Angua?" said Carrot, after a moment. She was unable to answer him, however, for some time.

"Fine," she said, when she had finally recovered, wiping tears from her eyes, "fine. Just... amused. Amused for no reason whatsoever," she added hastily, "just... amused! Spontaneously amused!"

"If you say so," said Carrot, doubtfully.

There was a chill draft as the door opened.

"Morning, men**(a)**," said Vimes.

"Good morning, Mister Vimes," the few watchmen who were in the front room chorused raggedly, except, of course, for Captain Carrot, who stood sharply to attention and snapped off a perfect salute, saying in loud, ringing tones guaranteed to embarrass any onlookers for his sake, "Good morning, Mister Vimes!"

"Er... yes," said Vimes, seeming vaguely shell-shocked. Angua rather thought he ought to be used to it by now, but then, to be fair, Carrot's ability to evoke incredulity in the cynical bystander did not really fade with time, as she could testify, and not even the most cynical of aforementioned bystanders could really argue that familiarity with his practice bred contempt. At least, they couldn't argue it and mean it.

Well, except possibly for her family...

She was jerked back to what passed for reality when Vimes glanced at her and said "Everything all right there, sergeant?"

"Yessir," she said.

"Are you sure? You look a bit..." he frowned "distressed..."

She snorted. "You would be too, sir, with all due respect."

"I would? Why?"

"Corporal Nobbs," she said, succinctly. Understanding dawned on his face.

"Oh," he said.

"Feel free to see for yourself," she said cheerfully.

Vimes became aware that the watchmen had become an eager audience. He sighed, squared his shoulders, reminded himself that he had just faced _Sybil _and Nobby, even doing whatever had discomfited Angua so much, should be peanuts by comparison, and entered the canteen.

He found Nobby sitting at one of the benches, some sort of catalogue rolled up in one hand, staring dreamily at some point far beyond the back of Vimes' head. Vimes shook said head wearily and pried the catalogue out of the corporal's hand. Nobby came to.

"Oh, hello sir. Didn't see you there."

"No?" said Vimes. Then his gaze fell on the catalogue he was holding.

After very few seconds indeed, he handed the catalogue back to Nobbs. Stiffly. Keeping his eyes on a point that was, likewise, far beyond the back of Nobby's head. It was almost like the look he used with Vetinari, except with teeth-aching embarrassment added.

"Everything all right, sir?" said Nobby, anxiously.

"Yes," said Vimes, still staring fixedly at the wall. "Yes indeed."

"Er... yessir?"

"Very good," said Vimes, in a voice dead from horror. "Carry on, Corporal."

"Er... thank you, sir."

"Yes indeed," said Vimes again, then turned and marched out.

Nobbs looked after him for a moment in bewilderment, then glanced back at the catalogue. What was wrong with Purple Rose Morning Dew Anointed Jiggly Thing #167 with Added Exciting and Stimulating Sound Effects**(b)**, that was what he wanted to know.

Angua met Vimes' eyes. They shared a moment of silent horror.

"_Is _there something wrong?" said Carrot, frowning. "You both seem a bit uncomfortable."

Angua gave Vimes an urgent look. He received it blankly for a moment before catching on, but when he did catch on, the effect was noticeable. He drew himself up and said, firmly,

"Carrot, you trust me, don't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"You believe what I tell you?"

"Oh, yes, sir."

"Then listen to me now," said Vimes, gravely. "Do not go into that room."

"But..."

"_Promise _me, in fact, that you will not enter that room until either Sergeant Angua or I gives you the say-so."

"I suppose, sir..."

"Captain?"

"Yessir."

"Good."

"But what happened?" Carrot protested. "Is the corporal all right?"

"He's fine."

"Then what..."

"Carrot," said Angua kindly, patting him on the shoulder while Vimes escaped to his office, "you wouldn't want to know."

"I wouldn't?"

"Definitely not."

"...Why?"

"If I could tell you you wouldn't mind knowing, would you?"

"But -"

"If I told you though now when you mind knowing it you would mind, because you would know it."

Carrot gave up.

**(a) It was generally understood that Vimes' occasional use of the word 'men' was only an abbreviated and less bulky form of 'watchmen', and not in anyway implying that all or even the majority of the various... persons he was speaking too were human males. That would have been simply ridiculous.**

**(b) It'd taken him ages to get the old tomcat to scream at just the right frequency.**

**--**

Mr. Slant was presiding over the Guild Heads' Meeting For the Election of the New Patrician. It was quite an event, in an extremely non-obtrusive, non-younger-de-Worde-attracting sort of way, so it was really a pity that the actual decision had been made the night before.

Slant was a very, very old being. He had lived sixty years and then after-lived for more than three hundred, and one of the things this meant was that certain topics he could discuss coherently and even insightfully without so much as prodding his (dead) grey matter, leaving his brain free to contemplate other things. Right now, for instance, he was droning on about the many virtues of Mr. Scrope.

"...and, I am sure, a wonderful leader," he finished. "As you may have noted, an official document for the deposition of Lord Havelock Vetinari, Patrician and the immediate instatement of Mr. Scrope as Patrician is now being passed around for you to sign or, of course, not, as you so choose." He smiled thinly at the room. As one extremely fat entity, they recoiled slightly.

When the heavy parchment came back to him, he found five signatures missing. Boggis, Mrs. Palm, Miss... his large, dead nose wrinkled slightly with distaste, dislodging a small moth... _Dixie Voom_, that launderer, Mrs. Manger, who in his personal opinion ought not to be there at all and, of course, (he exhaled an even smaller moth) Queen Molly.

"Ladies," he said, smiling even more thinly at the fearsome four. Boggis was already starting to look shifty; he could deal with the man later. "You do not approve of this course of action?"

"I certainly do not," said Mrs. Palm, with dignity, the effect - in Slant's eyes - somewhat detracted from by the excess of lace, well, everywhere, that the damnable woman was wearing today.

"No?" he said, drily**(a)**. "And would you care to explain your reasons to your fellow Guild Heads, madam?"

"We have no proof that Lord Vetinari did it," Miss Voom piped up. Mrs. Palm glared daggers at her, but the damage was done. Mr. Slant allowed himself another little condescending smile.

"I am afraid that we do. Or do you contest the evidence of the three witnesses?" Boggis, he noted out of the corner of his eye, was heading towards the document, pen in hand.

"Well - no - but -" she said, already getting flustered.

"But they clearly said that they had seen His Lordship with a knife over the poor clerk's body," said Slant.

"Well - _yes -"_

He dismissed her smoothly. "I am afraid, Miss Voom, that the matter is settled. Majority rules. Now, of the matter of what is to be done with Lord Vetinari; I suggest pardon."

"Pardon?" said Mrs. Palm, incredulously, with he supposed some justification. Nevertheless...

"Indeed. Consider, after all. The strains of office - the pressure of the high altitude - we cannot really blame the man for cracking under the weight of it. And, after all, no one was killed. Pardon and mercy! Such is the way."

Good words, though perhaps a little less efficacious for the tone he used when saying them, which was of complete and utter boredom.

There was a general sigh of relief through the crowd, except for the fearsome four, and those he wasn't worried about. A small clause was added to the document. And with that, thank any sufficiently respectable gods, the meeting ended.

Slant _was _uneasy to note, however, that Queen Molly, once out of the Palace, whispered in the ear of a beggar, who then headed straight for what, if he was not extremely mistaken, was the direction of Pseudopolis Yard.

**(a) Though it must be said that Mr. Slant rarely said things in a manner that was anything _but_ dry.**

**--**

Luckily, Carrot saw Foul Ol' Ron coming.

"Angua!" he shouted.

"What?"

"Find cover!"

Angua stared at him, but then a whiff of the Smell must have come through, and her eyes widened.

"Bloody hells.**(a)**"

With that she disappeared upstairs (to achieve maximum distance). Carrot, meanwhile, hurried out to greet the beggar before he could actually enter the building.

"Hello, Mr. Ron," he said cheerfully.

"Bugrit," said Ron.

"Yes, of course," Carrot agreed. "Nice day, isn't it?" This of a freezing day with an overcast sky. Carrot thought all days were nice, even in Ankh-Morpork, in the same way that he thought everybody meant well, in their heart of hearts, and in the same way that he really did cherish the belief that Nobby Nobbs had at some point in his lifetime taken a bath.

"I told 'em, bugrit," said Ron, heading towards a more sheltered eave. "Millenium hand and shrimp! Garn."

"Yes, Mr. Ron," said Carrot, following, though he was beginning to think it a false alarm.

"I told 'em, I told 'em. The tailors, I told 'em. Scrope's Patrician."

"Is he, Gaspode?" said Carrot, looking down.

"Shh!" Ron hissed, or at least, appeared to hiss. "Keep your voice down!"

"What else?" Carrot whispered loudly in a way that would have drawn immediate attention had there been anyone outside in the horrible weather.

"An'... an' they're going to pardon Vetinari."

"_What_?"

"Don't arsk me, I'm just a little doggy wot isn't even getting a treat for this..."

"Later, Gaspode," said Carrot with a sigh. He looked like his thoughts were elsewhere. "A pardon for Lord Vetinari? You're sure?"

"What do you take me for?" said Gaspode, indignantly.

"A good dog," said Carrot, gravely. Gaspode growled, but his heart wasn't in it, and besides, the captain was already returning inside with a last "I'll find some sausages for you later today."

"Huh," said Gaspode to himself, "and much good that does me now."

And the careful listener might have noticed a quiet bark of fellow-feeling from inside Foul Ol' Ron's coat.

**(a) In fact this was a false alarm; the main body of the Smell was attending an opera some ways away, and what Angua had caught was only the whiff that always clung to Ron even when most of his Smell was elsewhere, engaged in more sophisticated activities.**


	9. Wherefore Ducks?

**Wherefore Ducks?**

_In which the ducks and the wherefores at last make their grand entrance (and exit) and the definition of 'dog' is stretched far, far past its reasonable limit_

Croissant Rouge Pursuivant grumbled quietly to himself as he went about his work.

Well. Not to _himself, _per se.

"Thou had best see here," he muttered, nudging Roger with his toe. The hippopotamus snorfled and rolled over. He glared at it. "Up thee get. 'Tis breakfast time."

Roger the hippo made his opinions on breakfast time clear with one bellow and the slow opening of a single reddish eye.

"Fine, fine," said Croissant hurriedly, backing away. "But don't thou go blaming me when thou art hungry later."

"_Aoooogha,_" the hippo... expelled, along with a good deal of saliva. The bandy-legged Herald backed away further and moved on to Keith, who looked a good deal less hostile as he wallowed in his personal pool of slime, and whose great head turned to follow the swinging motion of the bucket of slop he was carrying. Relieved, he said, "Well, 'tis good to see _thou _at least art being cooperative" and flung the meal to the beast, who caught it neatly in one mouthful, swallowed, and then sank back into the murk. Croissant nodded to himself and turned to the next animal -

- which was a duck, floating in part of the hippos' pond very near to the herald's left foot.

Croissant stared. It looked innocent and... well... duck-like. But surely it hadn't been there a moment ago? Come to think of it, he had heard some sort of fluttering sound, but he'd been concentrating on the unhelpful Roger, and he'd assumed it was one of the peacocks.

The door leading back inside was ajar, he noticed, damn it all, he must have left it open and...

He did not, however, have time to complete the thought, because at that very moment the aforementioned door burst open and two more ducks flew into the enclosure.

"Why ducks - er, wherefore ducks_?"_ he said, staring. As far as he knew, the Royal College owned a grand total of zero ducks. They weren't exactly heraldic animals - worse than weasels, even. He tried to remember how ducks came to be. Did they spawn, was that it, had they left out the milk and thus the ducks had been born?

Then the door burst open _again_, but this time it was people, not ducks, who came pouring through, screaming and swearing and jostling each other, a regular sea of them. Croissant panicked.

"No no no no no!" he said, waving his arms at them wildly, "don't, you'll scare the animals -"

It was too late.

Even - no, especially - for the unfortunate Herald, what happened next required a slowed down move-by-move replay.

Men and women and children and the occasional zombie spread out through the courtyard, grabbing at random for any animal they could reach.

The animals, needless to say, did not take well to this. The ones that could fly flew, and incidentally beat various unfortunate persons over the heads with their wings in the process. The ones that could trample, trampled, causing several minor injuries to the extremities of other various unfortunate persons. The ones that couldn't do either of those aided the cause by making as much noise as they could. On top of that, the people with their new grievances, along with the people without, were essentially all screaming at the top of their lungs.

The collective effect was mind-numbing. And ear-numbing**(a)**.

"Oh, bugger," whispered the old man, and ducked as a clod of manure went sailing past the place where his left ear would have been if he hadn't ducked. He then retreated into a sheltered corner, closed his eyes, and curled in on himself and whimpered, because he knew a lost cause when he saw (or didn't see) one, and this certainly qualified. He could not, however, plug his ears well enough to block out the noise. He could not plug his ears anywhere _near _well enough.

"Jemima! Help me with this hog -"

"Where're my _ducks -_"

"_Aoooooogha -"_

"Ouch -"

"Awk!"

"Damn it, the bloody pigeons're trying to eat my bloody ear -"

"Help yourself you stupid tit, here I am tryin' to help the whole family and all yous can think of is your hog -"

"_Oooouuuuooooommm -"_

"Here, little birdy - Argh! Come to papa - Argh! Argh! If you'd only - argh -"

"Here, you carn't tell me about sacrifice, was it you who sat up with Aunt Muriel for a whole week just so's she'd leave us what's in her coffers -"

Eventually, the sounds subsided, although the bickering did not. People were filing out, nursing injuries and also hogs. Most of the animals were apparently gone, if Croissant was any judge. He risked opening an eye.

The yard was an almighty mess, even more so than ever. Feathers, manure, fur, teeth, pieces of fabric presumably torn from people's clothing, a couple of fingers**(b)** - all were strewn about or even, in some places, heaped about.

"Gods have mercy," said Croissant Rouge Pursuivant, and fainted dead away.

**(a) Although, by Discly standards, most inhabitants of Ankh-Morpork are starting to go deaf, which was originally believed to be caused simply by the constant wear and tear of "life in the city", and, indeed, probably was originally caused by that; however, modern theories suggest that it has now been bred into the genetics of all native Morporkians, in open defiance of Leonard of Quirm's theory of How Simple Animals Acquire Appendages Through Mutation And Become Complex Animals Like Us and, well, common sense. Probably a good thing da Quirm's theory was never really popular, anyway, and as for common sense, nothing need even be said as to its frequency of application beyond "goose eggs."**

**(b) The owner of which only discovered their loss later, when a random cow tried to eat half his hand and failed, because it was already gone, and he never did find out where he'd left them.**

--

Before he actually got back inside the Watch house, however, Captain Carrot was waylaid by a passing, non-Foul-Ol-Ron member of the canting crew, in this case Duck Man.

"Why, good morning to you, Captain," said Duck Man politely. "And would you care to purchase a newspaper today?"

"Certainly!" said Carrot cheerfully. "Let's see, I must have a dollar somewhere..."

When the beggar**(a) **had been paid and disappeared, Carrot hurried inside and unfolded the slightly damp sheet of news. The first thing that hit his eyes was

Have You Seen This Dog?

25 Reward for Information

**  
**Then, a sketch he knew that Grabthroat, who was a fair hand with charcoal, had done of Wuffles.

"D-mn," he said, paling.

"Are there somefing wrong, sir?" said Detritus, who was breaking pencils, that is to say, writing his report at one of the desks.

"Yes. No. Maybe," said Carrot, distractedly, and half-ran up the stairs to Vimes' office.

"Sir?" he said, slowing to a stop with a slight screeching noise.

"Carrot?" said Vimes, surprised. "What is it?"

"Er... you'd better take a look, Mister Vimes..."

Vimes took a look.

"The idiot," he said weakly, after a moment.

"I know, sir."

"The bloody, bloody idiot."

"Yessir."

"He actually... he actually offered a _twenty-five dollar reward._"

"Yes, sir."

"In Ankh-Morpork."

"Yes, sir."

"And he's lived here for more than a week."

"Bloody, bloody damn," said Vimes, shaking his head.

"Yes, sir. We should probably -"

He was interrupted, however, from a scream.

They looked at each other, and then, on unspoken agreement, they ran.

Angua was in wolf form, trying to control the sea of animals, when they came out. It was not, it must be said, working very well. Oh, the animals skidded away from her, but that just caused terrible domino chain reactions as animals hit other animals in their hurry to escape the werewolf scent, and other animals hit humans, and humans hit other humans and took the opportunity to catch up on their ancient grudges with great enthusiasm.

"SERGEANT!" Vimes bellowed.

She emerged from the mass with effort, looked rather bedraggled and not quite her usual well-groomed, poised self. She was panting.

"We're not going to be much use," Vimes told her. "And neither are you. You can't control all this, can you?"

She managed a passable shake of the head and a very expressive groan.

"I know. I intend to see de Worde suffer," he said, grimly.

"He probably just didn't think, sir -"

"I'm tired of people not thinking! He can't afford not to think, here and now!" the Commander snarled. To be fair, he had had a long day, and it wasn't even past ten o' clock.

Carrot looked like he was about to protest, but thought better of it.

And the three watchmen followed the tide of beasts.

**(a) Although Duck Man was a beggar only in the loosest sense of the word. He had never actually begged; before he joined the canting crew, he had simply stood around and looked pitiful, and his duck had looked pitiful too, and that had done the trick, and afterwards he survived on what really amounted to the opposite of begging: threats to stay forever 'n' ever and spit on the people standing near your house.**

**--**

Gleam Street was besieged. Or, more specifically, 'the Times' headquarters' was besieged. The tiny shed looked comically island-like in the spread of all shapes and sizes of the gods' creation outside, many of which were dogs but certainly not _all _of which were dogs.

Vimes, Carrot, Angua, and other watchmen who had observed the chaos outside struggled through the crowd. It looked like something was happening in the shed itself - the blonde young woman, who had been haranguing, admittedly with some justification, the various citizens who had come for their reward had disappeared inside the office, as had de Worde himself, who they'd seen coming through only a moment earlier (and who had also been, very justifiably, harangued about it. Vimes had felt quite kind and sympathetic towards the blonde woman at that moment, although that would change).

Then there was a flash of... something. Even from a hundred yards away, the watchmen felt it. Dark light, thought Vimes, remembering Cheery's face as she explained.

The animals certainly did. They fled in hordes, screaming and squawking and barking and lowing and so forth and above all moving away from the place as fast as they possibly could.

It had been bad enough when the animals were being herded. Now it was as if the world was falling to pieces beneath their feet.

In the end, it took the entirety of the Watch, along with various concerned citizens, a sizeable portion of the Palace Guard, and the rather excitable Mr. Croissant Rouge Pursuivant, although it must be said that the last was not really all that much help and spent most of the time saying to himself "But wherefore the ducks?"**(a)**, to even redirect the masses towards the docks, where not as much of the city would be destroyed by the stampede. Vimes didn't want to _think _about the net property damage. Vetinari would have something to say about it...

...which snapped him, very abruptly, back to the more political reality of the day.

He wiped some sweat off his brow with a handkerchief, and looked at Carrot, who was unstrapping his breastplate and sweating even more profusely than he understood Mr. Scrope had at the announcement of his ascension to the Patricianship.

"Damn it all," he said. "But at least the thing's winding down. Now. I think it's time to pay a visit to Mr. de Worde."

"Do you want me to go with you, sir?" said Angua, who, typically, looked rather more composed than either of her superior officers. Bloody werewolves.

"Thank you, sergeant, but no. I think I can handle the newsy bastard myself."

"I didn't mean -"

"I know, I know. And not you, Carrot, either," he added, before Carrot could even open his mouth (having successfully removed the breastplate).

"Are you sure, sir?"

"Yes. I think it's time he and I had... a little talk."

"If you say so, sir."

"I do say so."

He went.

**(a) In fact this would later be the cause of deep psychological issues in Croissant, who ended up having to see a retrophrenologist to get his head bashed in and the memories bashed out(b).**

**(b) At least, that was the theory. After all, if the shape of your head affected your psyche, than changing your head must change your psyche, right? Such was Ankh-Morpork, and such was the birth of retrophrenology, and such was the birth of the whopping great big bruise on the left side of Croissant Rouge Pursuivant's head, which endured for days afterwards but which did cure him of any thoughts but "ooh... pretty stars...".**

**--**

Vimes arrived at the shed in time to hear de Worde say "...it was the feeling that the top of your head has been opened and icicles have been pounded into your brain," and the dwarf - what was his name again? Goodmountain? - reply "Yeah, okay, that too. You've got a way with words, right enough..."

He decided that would be an opportune moment to step forward, and was ever so slightly amused to see the dwarf grip his axe, and de Worde groan. Well, good. A little conflict was always healthy.

"Ah, Mr. de Worde," he said, stepping more fully inside and noting the disarray. Well, well. Dark light, it would seem, did not have effects only in superstition.

"There are several thousand dogs stampeding through the city at the moment," he began, with a friendly smile. "This is an interesting fact, isn't it?"

No response. Surprise, surprise.

"Well, I say dogs," Vimes continued, painstakingly removing a cigar from his case and striking a match on the dwarf's helmet, which was conveniently with hand's reach and at just the right height, too... "_Mostly_ dogs, perhaps I should say. Some cats. More cats now, in fact, 'cos, hah, there's nothing like a, yes, a tidal wave of dogs, fighting and biting and howling, to sort of, how can I put it," in a way inappropriate for children and most adults, he inserted silently, _that's _how I can put it, "give a city a certain... busyness. Especially underfoot -" hells yes! "-because - did I mention it? - they're very nervous dogs, too. Oh, and did I mention cattle?" The memory of the bull charging down one of his dwarf officers would haunt him till his dying day, and probably cause occasional random outburst of laughter till his dying day, too. "You know how it is, market day and so on, people are driving the cows and, my goodness, around the corner comes a wall of wailing dogs... oh, and I forgot about the sheep." Which was odd, because the sheep had been quite shockingly vicious. "And the chickens, although I imagine there's not much left of the chickens now..."  
He stared at de Worde, dropping the friendly smile with an almost audible clatter.

"Anything," he said slowly, "you feel you want to tell me?"

And it must be said, for the sake of full, well, _journalistic _honesty, that Samuel Vimes was, at that very moment, hoping that the fool would say know.

Because, after all, there's no such thing as too much reason to go absolutely bloody postal.

De Worde stared back at him for a moment, opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Closed it again. And, finally, began to answer some questions of his own.


	10. Wherefore Ducks? Cont'd

**Wherefore Ducks? Cont'd: The Unhappy Truth Of What Can Be Learned On The Back Of A Rocking Horse  
**

_In which Mr. de Worde puts his notebook down and Vimes contemplates the many different forms of pursuit_

The shed was dim. There was an air of thick expectation hanging over the room, to go with the thick layer of dust.

"Uh," started de Worde, "we had a bit of a... problem..."

"Never! Really? Do tell!" said Vimes brightly.

De Worde said, after a rather obvious moment's thought, "The dogs took fright when Mr. Chriek took a picture of them."

Vimes couldn't blame them - dark light, from the sound of it, was not pretty. Didn't make him any happier with de Worde, though. Or Mr. Chriek, who he took a moment to glare at. The vampire had the grace to look embarrassed, unlike his co-worker.

"Well now," he said, "Shall I tell you something? They're electing a new Patrician today -"

"Who?" said de Worde, who, as usual, just did not have a sense of when to shut up and listen.

"I don't know," Vimes told him, more correctly translated as "I'm not planning to tell _you _any time soon." Luckily, the lad probably didn't know that.

The blonde young woman blew her nose loudly enough to attract everyone's attention. Vimes suspected that this was not an accident. "It'll be Mr. Scrope, of the Shoemakers and Leatherworkers," she said tremulously.

Damn. "How do you know that?" Probably de Worde knew already, he thought, glancing at the man.

"Everyone knows," said the young lady. "That's what the young man at the bakery said this morning."

_Damn. _"Oh, where would we be without rumor," he growled. Then he realized he'd said that aloud, shrugged, and plowed onwards. In for a dollar, in for a trust fund. "So this is not a day, Mr. de Worde, for... _things... _to go wrong. My men are talking to some people who brought dogs along. Not many of them**(a), **I have to admit. Most of them don't want to talk to the Watch**(c). **Can't think why, we're very good listeners. Now," he paused for emphasis, "_is there anything you want to tell me_?"

As one, the inhabitants of the tiny room turned to look at de Worde.

"Everyone's staring at you," he added. "I notice."

William de Worde seemed to be struggling with himself. "The _Times _does not need help from the Watch," he said finally.

Vimes should bloody well think not. "Helping wasn't what I had in mind."

"We haven't done anything wrong.

Hah! "_I'll _decide that."

"Really?" de Worde shot back. "That's an interesting point of view."

"Oh," said Vimes. He was taking out his notebook. Surprise, surprise. "I see." And by way of response, he took out his truncheon.

"You know what this is?" he said, calmly.

"It's a truncheon," said de Worde, champion of The Tournament For Stating The Obvious. "A big stick."

Not unakin to Vimes' initial reaction, in fact. But he knew better now. Sort of.

"Always the last resort, eh?" he replied, not rising to the bait. That was untrue, in fact - his last resort was probably more accurately defined as his fists - but this was no time to niggle at details. "Rosewood and Llamedos silver, a lovely piece of work. And it says on this little plate here that I'm supposed to keep the peace**(d), **and _you, _Mr. de Worde, don't look like part of that right now." De Worde met his gaze. Vimes stared at him. He stared back, stepped a little closer, and murmured,

"What was the odd thing Lord Vetinari did just before the... accident?"

Vimes stopped.

Maybe de Worde was going to be useful after all.

He put the truncheon down. It clicked against the hard wood of the desk, ringing loudly in the total silence that had fallen over the room.

"Now you put your notebook down, lad," he said, quietly, and very, very thoughtfully. "That way, it's just... you and me." Except for the dwarves and the young lady, but it was true nevertheless. "No... clash of symbols."

There was a very slight pause, and Vimes could see de Worde weighing matters in his head, but then, thank gods, the man put away the notebook.

"Right. And now you and me are going to go over to the corner there, while your... friends... tidy up," because with the unfortunately limiting symbols in question out of the way, he could worry about rumor more. He couldn't resist one last sarcastic comment towards the vampire, however. "Amazing, isn't it, how much furniture can get broken, just by taking a picture."

He glanced at the corner he'd indicated, randomly, and sat down on an upturned washtub (well, he was a bit tired). De Worde, to his brief amusement, was forced to come to rest on a rocking horse**(e).**

"All right, Mr. de Worde," he said, "we'll do it your way."

"I didn't know I had a way."

Which might be true, but didn't really matter, at this point. "You're not going to tell me what you know, are you?"

"_I'm _not sure what I know," de Worde retorted. "But I think Lord Vetinari did something... unusual... before the crime." No more of 'the accident', Vimes noted. Amazing what a notebook - or rather, the absence thereof - could do.

Time to get his out, however, if he hoped for any help from this quarter. He flipped through the notes and after a moment found what he wanted. "He entered the Palace by the stables some time before seven o' clock and dismissed the guard," he read aloud.

"He'd been out all night?" asked the other man.

Vimes shrugged. It was a reasonable question, but he certainly didn't know. "His Lordship comes and goes. The guards don't ask him where and why." Most of them probably couldn't muster enough coherent speech for it, and those who could had just enough brains to comprehend that doing so was not exactly a course of action destined to go down in history as one of the top ten Plans Most Advisable In The Pursuit Of Longevity. Something occurred to him. "Have they been talking to you?"

De Worde hesitated again. "I don't think so."

"Oh, you don't _think_ so?" said Vimes sardonically. He was in a bad mood.

"I... think it's very unusual for His Lordship to be outside the Palace at that time," de Worde said, neatly sidestepping the question. "Not part of... the routine."

"Nor is stabbing your clerk and trying to run off with a very heavy sack of cash," Vimes pointed out. He saw the lad's expression. "Yes, we noticed that, too. We're not stupid," he said, and apologized silently to the heavens for this incredible falsehood as applied to certain members of his organization before going on. "We only look stupid. Oh..." he turned another page of his notebook "and the guard said he smelled spirits on His Lordship's breath." Must have been strong if a member of the Palace Guard had noticed it.

"Does he drink?" said de Worde.

"Not so's you'd notice."

"He's got a drinks cabinet in his office."

Vimes smiled - only slightly, but enough that de Worde probably caught it. "You noticed that?" Not exactly unexpected, of course, but impressive. "He likes other people to drink."

"But all that might mean was that he was plucking up the courage to..." The man stopped, wisely. Vimes had been about to rethink his proposition that the journalist's help might actually be useful. "No, that's not Vetinari. He's not the sort."

"No. He isn't," Vimes agreed. He sat back on the washtub, insofar as that was possible. "Perhaps you'd better... think... again, Mr. de Worde. Maybe - _maybe _- you can find someone to help you think better."

It was odd, the dancing way he had to talk with bloody newsy people like de Worde. Vimes was more used to giving orders and shouting.

But different times called for different words. Unfortunately.

In any case, clearly he wasn't going to be getting any more information out of de Worde right now. However, the prospect of de Worde doing a little independent investigation - the right of every free citizen - in ways that were technically illegal, at least for respectable members of respectable City Watches, seemed hopeful.

De Worde must have picked up the tone, because he changed the subject. "Do you know much about Mr. Scrope?"

"Tuttle Scrope? Son of old Tuskin Scrope," said Vimes. "President of the Guild of Shoemakers and Leatherworkers for the past seven years. Family man. Old established shop in Wixon's Alley." He had to stop himself from cringing at the last part, but he managed it.

"That's all?"

"Mr. de Worde, that's all the _Watch_ knows about Mr. Scrope." Nobby, on the other hand, he added in his head, probably knew a lot more. "You understand? You wouldn't want to know about some of the people we know a _lot _about." A certain Wolfgang von Uberwald came to mind, for instance.

"Ah." De Worde frowned, looking suddenly puzzled. "But there's not a shoe shop in Wixon's Alley."

Ah. "I never mentioned shoes."

"In fact the only shop that is even, er, remotely connected with leather is-"

The lad was well up on his city geography. "That's the one."

"But that sells -"

"Comes under the heading of leatherwork," Vimes said shortly, taking the opportunity to reclaim his truncheon.

"Well, _yes... _and rubber work, and... feathers... and... whips..." Vimes, because he was a kind soul, did not point out that whips were often leather, as the man was obviously flustered "and... little jiggly things..." Flustered, yes. Blushing, in fact. "But -"

"Never been in there myself," said Vimes, cutting him off before he could stick his foot further into his gullet, "although I believe Corporal Nobbs gets their catalogue." He closed his eyes briefly in pain, then went on. "I don't believe there's a Guild of Makers of Little Jiggly Things, although it's an interesting thought. Anyway, Mr. Scrope is all nice and legal, Mr. de Worde." Sad, but true - Vimes had checked. Twice. He suspected it said something about Ankh-Morpork that a maker of such, well, _jiggly _little jiggly things as Mr. Scrope could do so and still be all nice and legal, but damned if he knew what. "Nice old family atmosphere, I understand. Makes buying... this and that, and little jiggly things..." (de Worde's blush deepened noticeably) "...as pleasant as half a pound of humbugs, I don't doubt. And what rumor is telling _me _is that the first thing nice Mr. Scrope will do is pardon Lord Vetinari." Rumor in this case taking the form of a werewolf sergeant, but hey, rumor had taken far, far stranger forms.

"What? Without a trial?"

"Won't that be nice?" said Vimes, brightly. "A good start to his term of office, eh? Clean sheet, fresh start, no sense in raking up unpleasantness." Or raking up any unexpected hints that Vetinari had nothing, in fact, to be pardoned for**(f)**, he thought bitterly. "Poor chap. Overwork. Bound to crack. Didn't get enough fresh air. And so on. So he can be put away in some nice quiet place -" although with Vetinari in it, it probably wouldn't stay quiet for long - "and we'll all be able to stop worrying about this whole wretched affair. A bit of a relief, eh?"

De Worde looked lost. It was odd to see after all his bluster. "But _you _know he didn't -"

"Do I?" said Vimes. He lifted the truncheon again, twirled it once, still bright and cheerful. "This is an official truncheon of office, Mr. de Worde. If it was a club with a nail in it, this'd be a different sort of city." The sort of city it had been thirty years ago, in fact. And Vimes intended to make absolutely sure that the city today never became that sort of city again, if that was at all possible.

He stood up. "I'm off now. You've been thinking, you tell me. Maybe you ought to... _think_... some more."

And with that parting shot - or perhaps advice - he walked away.

**  
(a) A grand total of two, in fact, one of whom had a broken leg and therefore couldn't run away, and one of whom was a very old lady and a tad hard of hearing(b).**

**(b) And even harder of hearing now, thanks to the stampede right by her ear.**

**(c) An understatement. The appearance of the Watch had cleared the area wherever they went amazingly quickly - at least, of people. Vimes only wished that the animals could have seen it that way.**

**(d) Well. Piece, actually. Keeper Of The King's Piece. Vimes had never been sure which piece of the king it was he had in his possession, but in any case right then was not the moment to keep strictly to the facts. It was the moment to make sure that de Worde, who had an unfortunately good eye for details, didn't get a good look at the actual plate.**

**(e) A frightening thing, painted sickly pink with a pattern of dancing teacups covering its probably unholy hide. Vimes made a mental note to never let his oncoming child have a rocking horse ever ever ever.**

**(f) In the context of this particular crime, of course. Vimes was extremely aware that the term 'innocent', in a general sense, would have to be stretched very, very far or be applied with very, very strong glue before it could be used for Vetinari in any way.**

--

Heavy sleet and hail from a grey, gloomy sky greeted him as he came out.

So did Sergeant Colon.

"Sir!" said the sergeant, coming stiffly to attention. "Reporting, sir!"

Vimes sighed. "What's happening, Colon?"

"We are currently in pursuit of two suspicious characters, sir!"

"Suspicious characters?"

"They made off with a sack of dogs, sir!"

"You don't have to keep calling me sir, Fred," said Vimes wearily. He sometimes suspected that Fred had never quite believed him when he'd told the man that it was_ all right, _he _didn't _know anything about what had happend when he went away to Uberwald, Carrot refused to tell him. "Now, what's all this? Everyone who ran off had dogs -"

"Not like these," said Fred, fervently.

"No?"

"No," said Fred, and told him.

A mountainous nun and an oily holy man, he thought, when the sergeant had finished. Great. Like they needed more complications.

"Fine," he said. "Who's chasing them?"

"Sergeant Angua, Captain Carrot, Sergeant Detritus, Constable Mica, Constable Stronginthearm, Constable Stronginthearm, and Corporal Stronginthearm**(a)**."

"Good. And..." he stopped, mind backtracking to the explanation, "they came out of the shed, you said?"

"Yessir."

Aha. Now that made things interesting. Perhaps he would have done better to ask more about what exactly had happened to make Chriek take that picture, but it was probably too late now. It also made it clear that whatever uneasy alliance he might have just made, it didn't stretch too far.

"Thank you, sergeant," he said, after a moment. He turned to go, paused, and turned back to look at Colon, who was just beginning to relax, the poor bastard. It occurred to him that he'd been a bit tense recently. He decided now was probably not the time to do anything about it.

"When Sergeant Angua gets back," he told the man, "send her up to my office, will you? I have an... assignment... for her."

No, the alliance didn't stretch far enough for him to trust de Worde to tell him everything he needed to know. So it was time to resort to... other methods.

Watchmanly ones.

**(a) There were a total of seven Stronginthearms on the Watch at that time. Stronginthearm is a very common dwarfish name. Seven was actually a surprisingly low percentage compared to the Stronginthearm/non-Stronginthearm ratio of the city as a whole.**


	11. Why Never To Feed Aniseed To Werewolves

**Why Never To Feed Aniseed To Werewolves**

_In which men not only accidentally walk on water, they also leave footprints on it, and Mr. de Worde is discovered to have surprisingly good aim_

Angua was swearing at the lonely footprint**(a)** of the escaped Brother Pin when Sergeant Colon came puffing up the lane.

She looked up. "What is it, Fred?"

"Mister Vimes... wants to... see you..." he managed, after some wheezing and gasping and general reoxygenation of his lungs.

"What is it this time?"

"Says he's got an assignment for you."

"Significant Pause Plainclothes?"

"Dunno, he didn't say."

"Right." She sighed. "Where is he?**(c)**"

"Er, I don't - oh! He said to go up to his office."

Angua suppressed a smile at Colon's air of triumph over terrible forces and made her speedy way down to the Yard.

"'Afternoon, sergeant," said Vimes when she came in, without turning around (as usual). He was frowning at something out the window.

"Sir." She walked up to join him. There wasn't much to see, unless you _liked _contemplating all the things that went into the river this time of the afternoon. "Sergeant Colon said you had an assignment for me?"

"Yes," he said distractedly.

"Which is..." she prompted.

Vimes finally moved away from the window, and sat down at his desk. "Plainclothes," he said, after a moment. "Tracking job."

"Oh?"

"I want de Worde followed."

"_Oh._"

"Exactly. You know the scent?"

She nodded. "I remember it from the other day. Ah... can you tell me where he is right now?"

"Unfortunately, no. But you should be able to pick up a trail from their little shed behind the Bucket," said Vimes. "He might still be there, for that matter."

"Hmm. Okay. Anything else you can tell me?"

"Yes, yes," he said impatiently. "I believe Mr. de Worde is about to embark on a little... investigative procedure, entirely unauthorized by me in any way shape or form, of course -" he paused to pointedly ignore Angua's snicker "- and I would like to keep an eye on it, because I think Mr. de Worde is a likely young man who could assist the Watch in its own inquiries very much."

"I'm sure," said Angua, who looked inordinately amused, in Vimes' opinion. "I'll be going now, shall I?"

"That would be just dandy."

"Yes _sir,_" she said, and snapped him an extremely sharp salute. He snorted. She left the office, whistling quietly, and once outside stepped nonchalantly into the shadows under the eaves, in order to change into her... plain clothes.

**(a) Which was on the surface of the Ankh(b) and was, very slowly, oozing into a shapeless indent in what we will politely call 'mud'.**

**(b) Brother Pin had not been in any state to be watching his step at the time. His lack of concern cost him 98 cents in shoe leather, and gave the patch of flesh where the corrosive liquid the laughably naive called 'water' had touched his foot a greenish tinge that would spread slowly over the skin, its progress never stopping till the day he died.**

**(c) Vimes was wont to call for his officers in some very strange locations, often quite thoughtlessly. It was just asking for trouble to assume that he was actually staying still in some predesignated location.**

**--**

The world was a sea of not-colors.

Angua sniffed around the entrance of the Bucket, as humanity as a whole moved past her, not seeing or else choosing to ignore the handsome golden wolfhound just by their feet. Green, darker green, some interesting _rlgggssss _shades, a streak of sparkly electric blue, that would be the Black Ribboner - Chriek, wasn't that his name? her hackles raised slightly at that particular scent, but subsided as she moved on to the next, which was something like amber, here the sea of muddy shades that was probably a herd of related dogs, and...

_There._

William de Worde's scent was, like that of all humans, a complex, multi-dimensional ball of what human minds could really only think of in terms of color and sound. The human part of her had trained the wolf mind to the extent where she could recognize certain smells overlaying his own basic odor without those crude analogies: ink, for instance, and the faint orangish paper-scent, and sweat on his palms. But the underlying one was not so easily categorized. In less definable ways, de Worde smelled like anxiety.

To a werewolf, anxiety smells like smoke and tastes like metal - except when it's the other way around.

She followed, faster than he had walked, no doubt.

The trail led her first to Mrs. Arcanum's respectable boarding house, which she dared not enter ("no pets, no cooking, no wimmin'", she recalled, wryly; the landlady had her coming _and _going), but luckily came back out again, in a different direction.

The wolf stopped some time before she reached the alley, where she saw de Worde uneasily edging away from a gnoll. With good reason - Angua could smell the details of the contents of its pack from where she was standing, more than fifty yards away.

"A'r't'n, M'r. W'rd," she heard it rasp, though it was a mystery to her how it got the apostrophe into the Mr.

"Er... hello... er," de Worde attempted feebly.

"Sn'g'k." Okay, even Angua wasn't going to try to interpret that one, not with her wolf mind dulling her intelligence.

"Ah?" said the lad, "yes. Thank you. Goodbye." Then he was off, and so, by association, was she.

After that came some extremely exciting alley-ducking, which wasn't really all that exciting or even very difficult, for a werewolf, though de Worde was having trouble: his face was quite pink and she could smell the aforementioned sweat from a long way off now. And, indeed, now he was starting to slow down. There was a set of stairs to his left; he climbed them.

Suddenly the sound of footsteps stopped.

She hesitated, then lowered her snout to the ground and proceeded - carefully. She was fairly sure he couldn't have heard her or seen her, she was _good _at plainclothes operations**(a) **like this one. Very, very good, in fact. So good that she was perhaps a little overconfident.

She padded on, a little faster now, reassuring herself with thoughts that a lad who was stupid enough to offer a reward in _Ankh-Morpork _was surely not wise enough to keep an eye out for an suspiciously lupine dogs on his trail. It was at that point that the sock containing the bottle of aniseed hit the ground directly in front of her, about twenty feet away, with a little tinkling noise that was, Angua decided later, entirely inappropriate.

Her last thought at the time, however, before she went down, yelping, to the crashing crescendo of smell was where the _hell _did de Worde learn to aim that well?

Then what we laughably call 'the conscious mind' was left behind as her senses careened into the blooming mushroom-like cloud of... well, if I said cabbagy smell, I wouldn't be saying the half of it.

**  
(a) In fact, though she didn't know it, being good at plainclothes operations was in her genes; or, to be more accurate, it was in her genes to be good at escaping mobs carrying flaming torches and pointy pitchforks(b).**

**(b) Or, as in the unfortunate case of the Fiery Forks Disaster of '08, vice versa.**

--

It was more than an hour later when Sergeant Angua, bleary-eyed and, insofar as that is possible, bleary-nosed, changed back into human form, dressed, and swayed back into the Watch house.

"_Angua_?" said Vimes, who was at the desk, talking to Carrot. "What happened?" Carrot said "Are you all right?" at the same time.

"I'm..." she tried. Upon discovering that finishing the phrase was a very, very unhappy prospect, however, she gave up on the 'fine' bit.

"Oh, dear," said Captain Carrot, carefully propping her up to keep her from collapsing onto the hard floor of the front room.

"Have a..." she began again.

"You have a what?"

"'s a... a wossname. Starts with a..."

"Are you drunk?" he said concernedly, and tried to get a proper look at her face. Her breath didn't smell like alcohol, which he thought was probably a good sign.

"Headythingy." She winced. "Uhm. Headache."

"But what _happened?_" Vimes started, and then, seeing both Carrot and Angua's expression, gave up. "Sorry. Sorry. Never mind. Explain to me later, Carrot."

"Yessir."

He went up. Carrot turned back to his Er Um. "You have a headache? Gosh, it must be really bad. Let me get you to Igor -"

She shook her head slightly and cringed again at the motion. "'sokay," she muttered, "'sjust... a bottle o' aniseed..."

"A _bottle _of _aniseed?_"

Understand, dear reader, that of all those involved of the Tragedy of Delphine von Uberwald's Much-Abused Nose, Carrot was perhaps the best-equipped to comprehend the horror of it. He liked history, and he studied the history of Ankh-Morpork in particular. One of the things that history entailed was the discovery of aniseed.

Oh, some of its uses were innocent enough, at least before they had been perverted by the Morporkian Way; confections, for instance**(a)**, and flavoring tea, and aromatherapy. But all of the above used aniseed in ridiculously, ridiculously small amounts; perhaps a speck or two was enough to make plain bread taste like Magical Klatchian Technicolor Curry. A _bottle _of aniseed in front of werewolf's nose was enough to permanently blow up those ever so sensitive synapses. Perhaps Angua read his thoughts, because she protested, weakly,

"Nonono... drop_ in_ a bottle..."

"A drop in a bottle? Oh. Well, that isn't as bad, I suppose." He untensed, very slightly. "You still need to see Igor, though."

"Mm..." she mumbled, clutching at her head.

"Just so."

He half-led, half-carried her down to Igor's laboratory. By this point she was groaning quietly and clawing at her temples.

**(a) Though whether tasty confections are every **_**truly **_**innocent is certainly a reasonable question.**

--

Once Angua was safely deposited, Carrot went to get his superior officer.

"He _what?"_

"Er... apparently he dropped a scent bomb in front of her, sir."

"A scent bomb," said Vimes flatly.

"Yessir."

"Mr. I'm-so-innocent-and-well-intentioned de Worde dropped an illegal scent bomb in front of an officer of the Watch."

"Technically, sir -"

"Carrot!"

"Yessir."

Vimes sighed. "What kind of scent bomb was it?"

Carrot hesitated, and when he spoke at last, his tone was almost nervous. Carrot's voice was very rarely nervous. "Aniseed," he said.

He was well advised to be worried. "_What?_" said Vimes, on his feet in an instant.

"Aniseed," the Captain repeated.

"How much? Please tell me it wasn't much."

"I don't know exactly how much, sir, but... enough that she could see the droplet from twenty feet, sir."

"Oh, _gods._"

"Yessir."

They had arrived at Igor's cell. "What sort of state was she in?"

Carrot gave him a mute look. Vimes winced. "Damn."

They went in. And stared.

Angua was giggling. Vimes had never, ever, heard Angua giggle.

Angua was also dancing madly about on the stone slab. Carrot had never, ever, seen Angua doing a jig.

Angua was, possibly worst of all, wearing a towel on her head.

Igor was wedged into a corner, looking utterly terrified, insofar as Igors can look terrified. Which mean it was bad, because Igors are not terrified easily. "Thur!" he sprayed urgently as he saw them. "You have to help me!"

"I can see that," Vimes said weakly. "What..."

"It'th the werewolf thing," Igor said. "They're - wolf-humans, right? So they're a bit like... dogs**(a)**."

"And?" Carrot was trying to edge towards her. Vimes took the more pragmatic view and was edging away.

"Well... aniseed has an... effect on them."

"I can see that, too."

"An effect not unlike catnip has on cats, sir. Thur. Except... the unstability of the morphological field... enhances it, if anything."

"Catnip," said Vimes, looking blank for a moment, then realizing. "Oh gods."

"Yes, thur."

**(a) Under stress, Igor's lisp had a tendency to slip, an embarrassing habit that was one of the many factors that led him to join the Watch, that happy home of misfits all around the countryside. Under these particular circumstances, Vimes and Carrot could entirely sympathize.**

--

In the end, it took another half an hour to, well, to subdue the giggling. As afterwards Angua was relevantly coherent, Igor gave her leave to go up to Vimes' office, bearing healthy nourishing soup**(a).**

"Sorry about this, sir," said Angua, looking up from a bowl whose steam she had been sticking her face into in the hopes of some alleviation of the ache in her skull.

"His feet won't touch the ground," said Vimes, righteous anger forgotten in the terror of a aniseed-silly Angua returned at once.

"You can't arrest him, sir." Carrot was carefully rearranging a new hot towel on Angua's head.

"Oh?" Vimes snapped. "Can't arrest him for assaulting an officer, eh?"

"Well, that's where it gets tricky, doesn't it," said Angua, unhappily.

"You're an officer, sergeant, whatever shape you happen to be in!"

"Yes, but... it's always been a bit... convenient... to let the werewolf thing stay a rumor, sir. Don't you think so? Mr. de Worde writes things down. Angua and I aren't particularly keen on that. Those who need to know, know," said Carrot, calmly. He wasn't so calm when Sergeant Angua was doing the bloody hornpipe, thought Vimes sullenly. That memory would haunt him for the rest of his days.

"Then I'll ban him from doing it!" he snapped.

"How, sir?"

Vimes had to admit that seemed a bit problematic at the moment. Damn all nosy newsy people!"You can't tell me that as commander of police I can't stop some little ti-" Carrot looked at him reproachfully "-some idiot from writing down _anything_ he likes?"

"Oh, no, sir. Of course you can. But I'm not sure you can stop him writing down that you stopped him writing things down."

Well, no help from that direction. "I'm amazed. Amazed! She's your... your -" It was so bloody inconvenient not having a name for the damn thing -

"Friend," Angua interrupted. She breathed in more steam. "But Carrot's right, Mister Vimes. I don't want this going any further. It was my fault for underestimating him. I walked right into it. I'll be fine in an hour or two."

Hah! An hour or two! "I saw what you were like when you came in," he retorted. "You were a mess."

"It was a shock. The nose just shuts down. It was like walking around a corner and running into..." she groped for an analogy "...Foul Ole Ron."

"Ye gods! That bad?"

"Maybe not quite as bad as that. Let it lie, sir. Please." For the sake of my poor olfactory, Angua added silently.

Vimes calmed down slightly and sat down at his desk, staring at nothing for a moment before saying "He's a quick learner, our Mr. de Worde. He's got a pen and a printing press and everyone acts like he's suddenly a major player. Well, he's going to have to learn a bit more. He doesn't want us watching? Well, we won't anymore. He can reap what he sows for a while. We've got more than enough other things to do, heavens know," he added, thinking of the Guilds and Pins and nuns and inconveniently legal Scropes and slumping back into his chair.

"But he is technically -" Carrot protested, unwisely.

"See this sign on my desk, Captain?" Vimes snapped. "See it, Sergeant? It says 'Commander Vimes.' That means the buck starts here. It was a command you just got. Now, what else is new?"

There was a heartbeat pause, but then Carrot nodded and said, "Nothing good, sir. No one's found the dog." Well, he knew _that. _"The Guilds are all battening down. Mr. Scrope has been getting a lot of visitors." Surprise, surprise. "Oh, and High Priest Ridcully is telling everyone that he thinks Lord Vetinari went mad, because the day before he'd been telling him about a plan to make lobsters fly through the air."

Vimes had had a long, long day by this point. "Lobsters flying through the air," he ground out.

"And something about sending ships by semaphore, sir."

He put a hand over his eyes. "Oh dear." What else, what else, Vetinari gone mad, haha, well, that was nothing these days... "And what is Mr. Scrope saying?"

"Apparently he says he's looking forward to a new era in our history and will put Ankh-Morpork back on the path of responsible citizenship, sir."

Since Vimes had got perhaps forty percent of that, he replied, "Is that the same as the lobsters?"

"It's political, sir," Carrot explained, kindly. "Apparently he wants a return to the values and traditions that made the city great, sir."

Let's see, murder, theft, blatant egotism, One Man One Vote, blackmail... "Does he _know _what those values and traditions _were_?"

Carrot said gravely "I assume so, sir."

Vimes dropped the hand and stared at the two watchmen sitting before him. "Oh my god," he groaned. "I'd rather take a chance on the lobsters."

**(a) Terrible stuff of the same make as Lord Vetinari's chef's nourishing gruel, that would kill you as soon as... look at you. Sooner, in fact, because soup doesn't have eyes.**


	12. Suicides Of All Colors, Shapes And Sizes

**Suicides Of All Colors, Shapes And Sizes**

_In which the heroes of 20th century dog beauty-care are sadly unsung and rocking horses are set on fire_

"Geroff."

"I don't think so," said Captain Carrot, lifting the dog a little higher.

Gaspode considered biting - Carrot was holding him by the scruff of his neck, after all, it wasn't as if he couldn't reach - but the damn Good Dog lodged deep in his ancestral... wossname... stopped him. He settled for a glare and a "Woof, woof, menacing growl."

"Yes, yes." The six-foot-six dwarf waved his free hand dismissively. "I understand this is somewhat embarrassing, but I'm afraid it's necessary under the circumstances."

"Ha!"

"Really, it is," said Carrot, with total seriousness.

"Ruining my reputation is _necessary_, is it? I worked hard for this patch!"

"Gaspode," Carrot replied, "At the moment, and I don't mean to be cruel here, _I don't care._"

Gaspode subsided, looking sullen, insofar as dogs are able to look sullen (which is extremely).

"What is it, then?"

"Were you talking to Mr. de Worde just now?" said the Captain, bluntly.

"Maybe. What's it to you?"

He received a stern look. "It's your duty to help the Watch in its inquiries, Gaspode. I'm inquiring."

"Okay, okay! Sheesh. So maybe I was talking to 'im just now."

"Ah, good!" A bright smile appeared like magic on Carrot's face. "And what were you talking about, Gaspode?"

"Things."

"Things like..."

"Things like interviewing certain dogs wiv a relation to the crime," said Gaspode.

"Certain - aaaah."

"Exactly."

"Hmm. And are you off to meet him now?"

"Not... _now_, per se."

"No?" said Carrot. "But I thought you had urgent business to do. You were certainly in a hurry when I, er, apprehended you."

"I'm a busy dog!"

"Of course, of course," said Carrot soothingly. "I quite understand."

"Well, good."

"And you were doing...?"

"I was off to attend to, er, personal matters."

At this moment, the canting crew came crashing around the corner. They looked determined. Carrot, on the other hand, started to look ever so slightly worried.

"What did you say you were planning?" he muttered.

"I did tell you -" Gaspode began, before the Smell arrive at Ron's heels.

"Argh," said Carrot, dropping the dog and falling to his knees in the brief moment of shock that inevitably followed the first whiff of the Smell. His eyes started to water. A faint patina developed like magic over the surface even his well-scrubbed armor**(a)**.

"Right!" said Gaspode, and had disappeared, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake, before the olfactory organ could even begin to shut down. The canting crew crashed out again after him, the Duck Man's duck squawking angrily as it fluttered on behind him.

Unfortunately, the Smell did not have the grace to do the same.

Carrot got up, slowly. The faint cloud of greenish odor, so tangible as to be made visible, hung hesitantly in front of him. He gave it a severe look.

"Get along with you, now," he said, and even the Smell was abashed enough by Captain Carrot's Admonishing Finger to make its oozing way out. Once it was gone, he sighed and leaned against a handy wall for a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose in hopes of making the headache go away. After a while he stood up again and made his way back down the street to the Yard. Technically he had another thirty minutes or so of patrolling to do, but this, he felt, was something of a special occasion.

**(a) A patina which, to Captain Carrot's chagrin, later took two jars of Antimony's Abrasive Armor Polish, an hour, and gods knew how much elbow grease, which was a record for _his_ breastplate, beating even the work he'd had to put in to it when he'd first received his equipment after ten years of neglect. Let it be known, dear reader - _that _was the power of Smell.**

--

The staff of Le Poil du Chien, the most famous, the most stylish, and the most lucrative doggy beauty salon in the Sto Plains, was in uproar.

"Im_possible!_" said Ms. Latissima Carson, manager and manicurist, lifting her chin proudly**(a)**. "You wish us to attend to... _this? _This crrrrreature?" Ms. Latissima Carson was purportedly from Quirm, and liked to roll her r's as proof of this; the fact that no Quirmian she had ever met rolled their r's she considered to be a detail - _everyone _knew that a definitive sign of Quirmish origins was the rrrrry goodness. It was simply undeniable.

The Duck Man considered for a moment. "Er, yes?" he said, finally.

"Prrrreposterous!" she snapped.

"Excuse me?" said Lady Hermione, the current inhabitant of Altogether Andrews, with icy courtesy. "You are unwilling to service our loyal dumb beast?"

"Yeah, yeah, dumb beast, sure, that's what you say now, see if I get you those fifty dollars," grumbled Gaspode, somewhat ruining his cover. Duck Man shot him a glance. "Fine, fine, woof woof, sheesh," he added.

Ms. Carson looked at him uncertainly, but decided that, after all, there was no way the _dog _had spoken, so she must have thought it. She elected to concentrate on Lady Hermione instead, who she then proceeded to look down her nose at.

"It is a cur," she said. "We service only dogs of the verrry best pedigree."

"Here," Gaspode objected, but quietly, "who are you calling cur? I'll have you know my mother was a Ankh Terrier, purebred."

"Really?" said the Duck Man.

"Well, she _coulda _been a Ankh Terrier," said Gaspode, quailing under his incredulous expression, "I mean, nothing to say she weren't one."

"Of course," said the Duck Man.

Latissima ignored all this and continued, "And who are _you?"_

"Ai am Lady Hermione," said Lady Hermione, serenely.

The manager snorted. "Oh, yes. You are a lady, just as I am the..." she searched briefly for some suitably couth analogy "...the Empress of Hersheba."

"Ai believe," said Lady Hermione, "that Hersheba is in fact a _kingdom_, not an empire." You could have cut cubes out of her tone with an axe and sold them on hot summer days.

"In any case," said Ms. Carson, rallying, "the answer is no."

"Very well. Men!"

"Bugrit?"

"Hackkkkkk - ptooi!" One of the crimpers edged away, whimpering quietly, from the splotch of greenish phlegm that resulted from this.

"Yes, milady?"

"Yar?"

"Do your worst!"

"Millenium hand and shrimp!" said Ron.

"Ptooi," Coffin Henry repeated, though with a bit less heart (and saliva) in it this time.

"Yes'm."

"Yar!"

Latissima drew herself up - and nothing happened. They milled around a bit.

"Errrrrrrrrrrr..." she trilled, finally, when it became apparent that nothing more was going to happen, "what are you doing, exactly?"

"Making ourselves at home," said the Duck Man.

"Oh no," said the manager, paling as realization dawned.

"Yep," said Arnold Sideways, with satisfaction.

"You'rrrrre... _staying_?" she breathed.

"I told 'em, I told 'em," said Foul Ole Ron, apt considering.

But the Smell's grand entrance was the straw that broke the camel's back. It came pouring through the double doors, spreading like a particularly virulent plague and tinting all the pink and purple finery of the emporium a disturbingly verdant hue. Ms. Carson gave it one look before screaming and running out.

The remaining staff members looked at each other. "We'll be glad to help you," they said, in chorus.

Really, it was a pity that no Fashion Historian was there to see. The staff of Le Poil du Chien were surely the unsung heroes of the Century of the Fruitbat (or is it Cobra?). They crimped. They primped. They curled. Some of them, including the unfortunate manicurist, hurled. And in less rhyming fashion, but no less whole-heartedly, they cut, blew, permed, colored, wove, and shampooed. There was even an attempt to do something with Gaspode's monstrosities, which on other dogs might have been called toenails, but the end result was that Alianora, their manicurist, an unfortunately high-strung girl, ran screaming into the loo and refused to come out again, even going so far as to blockade the door with the waiting room chairs, which several other staff members thought in very bad taste.

The canting crew could only look in awe upon the result.

Gaspode was pink. Gaspode was glittery. Gaspode, it must be said, had a short fluffy tail.

"Gosh," said Arnold finally, breaking the silence.

"Indeed," the Duck Man agreed.

"Ai must say, they did a very fine job," said Lady Hermione.

"Bugrem."

Coffin Harry hawked approvingly.

"So... are you going now?" said one of the shampooists, unable to disguised the swelling hope in her voice.

The party looked at each other.

"You lot go back to the bridge," said Gaspode, sounding very, very glum. "I'll... go... meet... de Worde."

"We all appreciate your sacrifice," the Duck Man said kindly, as they were filing out the door.

"Yeah. Right," said Gaspode, but he followed.

Finally they were gone. The charming atmosphere of the shop was returned. At least, so it seemed, for one brief, happy incident, before the staff realized, as one, what lingered, and made, as one, the same heartfelt complaint.

"_How are we going to get rid of the Smell?_"

**(a) It was a good chin for lifting proudly, having a nice square jaw to back it up and just the right jutting quality to make it so that when raised, it threatened to jab unwary bystanders in the eye, and could certainly have caused grave injury in the process had it done so.**

--

Vimes was fidgety. Carrot could tell by the way the ash tray was overflowing.

"Sir," he said, closing the office door.

"Carrot? I thought you were on patrol?"

"I was. I had some news I thought you would want to know, sir."

"Oh? Out with it, then."

"Yessir. Er... de Worde is going to see Wuffles right now."

"_What? _Where? How? How quickly can we get there?"

"De Worde is going to see Wuffles," Carrot said, patiently, "but I don't think we can get there. The current holders of Wuffles are not... er... totally enthusiastic about the Watch barging in."

"And we should care because...?"

"Because they're not easily intimidated by Constable Bluejohn."

"Ah." Vimes subsided slightly.

"Yessir."

"Who are these people, then?"

"The canting crew, sir."

Vimes almost choked on his cigar**(a). **"The canting crew have Wuffles?"

"It would seem so, sir," said Carrot.

"And you know this... how?"

Carrot recalled that Vimes had not yet had the pleasure of crossing Gaspode's path while the dog was in a loquacious mood. "Er, the Duck Man told me."

"I see." Vimes let out a long sigh. "Then the light might have appeared at the end of the tunnel at last..."

"Yessir."

"Thank the gods."

"Which ones?" said Carrot, who was ever conscientious.

"The ones," said Vimes, smiling, "who prefer lobsters to tradition**(b)**."

And the door of the office burst open with a bang. Again.

"Mister Vimes!" said Fred Colon, screeching to a stop just before the edge of Vimes' desk.

Vimes was already on his feet. "What is it?"

"It's the newspaper people's shed - it's on fire!"

Which was all it took to set both Vimes and Carrot off at a run.

**(a) Which was difficult, but possible, as Igor could testify thanks to the time in Uberwald when he'd been working for his cousin, Igor, at Lady Margolotta's castle, when he'd mistaken one of her Black Scopani cigarettes for a rolled up rubber glove, which his laboratory contained many of, and tried to eat it.**

**(b) Though the Commander was joking at the time, his nature was cynical enough that he would probably not have been surprised to discover that, in fact, the majority of the inhabitants of Dunmanifestin _did _prefer lobster to tradition. Especially if it was boiled and laid on a bed of lettuce.**

**--**

The flames were already dying down by the time the watchmen arrived.

It was, in its own way, a terrible sight. The fire had laid waste to the pathetic little shed. Wood was scattered everywhere, blackened and smoking. Sparks were rising up into the night air like fireflies**(a)**.

The shed itself had not been completely destroyed. There was some wall, and some roof.

The rocking horses, Vimes noted, with a detached sort of relief, were gone.

He lifted his own torch a little higher, frowning down at the mess. And it _was _a mess. Rubble was everywhere... the broken presses, broken rocking horses, ashes...

It was to that mess, later, that he attributed the five minutes it took him to home in on the body.

"My gods," he said, when he did, finally, home in on it.

"Sir?" said Carrot, behind him, and then, "Oh dear."

It was certainly worth an oh dear. The lifeless form of the little man was smoky and charred, and also impaled on a spike. Vimes thought the spike looked vaguely familiar. He frowned at it for a moment before realizing that it was the spike the blond journalist woman had been using to stack papers. He stared at it.

"Here, that's Brother Pin!" said Angua, behind them.

"Who?" said Vimes.

"Really?" said Carrot, staring at the twisted shape.

Angua nodded. "The priest who was causing all that ruckus earlier today," she explained.

"Oh. Back to cause some more..."

"Probably."

"Yes, that would make sense." Vimes prodded the corpse with his boot. A brown leather wallet slipped off the man's chest, where someone had apparently left it after searching him. On the cover it said 'Not A Very Nice Person At All'. He walked over to the opening into the cellar, too, and looked down upon the sea of gleaming, melted lead, which covered the entire bottom of the little stone room and turned it into a lumpy mirror. His own face stared back at him. Next to his own face lay the well-cooked figure of a huge man. With an arrow through his head.

Angua and Carrot went up and contemplated the grisly visage with him. "I think that might be Sister Tulip," said Angua, after a while. Carrot winced.

Vimes was silent so long that the two other watchmen started to get concerned. "What are we going to do about this, sir?" said Carrot, after a moment.

"Under the circumstances," Vimes said distantly, taking in the carnage one more time, "I think this counts as suicide."

"Suicide?" said Angua, with a curious glance at both the man with the arrow through his head and the man with a spike through his general heart-y region.

"Creative suicide," said Vimes firmly, and that - for the Watch's ruling on the matter, at least - was that.

**(a) Not that Vimes, a Morporkian born and bred, or Carrot, raised as a dwarf and therefore raised several miles underground, had ever seen a firefly, but the principle was the same.**


	13. Smelling Of Bloody Violets

**Smelling Of Bloody Violets, With Pockets Full Of Fish  
**

_In which Mr. de Worde is an arrogant, supercilious bastard and Mr. Slant receives an unpleasant surprise in the form of an Extremely Newsy Paper_

It was starting to hail.

The biggest chunks were about the size of golf balls, greyish balls of ice with pitted surfaces that made clinking noises when they bounced off Vimes' helmet.

"And the same to you," he said to the sky.

The sky completely failed to respond, but Carrot looked distinctly worried and urged all three to walk faster, the weather was getting quite bad, to which Vimes replied that yes, he'd noticed.

They were intercepted in their hurried way, however, by the Duck Man, who was happily brandishing some newspapers in the general direction of those few passersby who had not yet gotten the message and gone inside. Carrot produced the pennies out of some mysterious, very well-hidden compartment of his armor**(a)** and handed the paper to Vimes, although it was too dark by then to read it.

Once in the shelter and above all _privacy _of his office, the Commander unfolded the _Times _and settled back to read.

He continued reading for some time.

Eventually, he lowered the paper, and looked up.

It was impressive, thought Angua, how he managed to look annoyed and pleased all at once.

"De Worde. In my office. Now," was all he said.

And as the realization dawned on both their faces, it wasn't only him that was fighting a smile.

**(a) You do not ask where _from _in his armor. You simply don't. And you don't think about the Protective, or its mysterious fate, at all.**

--

Perhaps half an hour later a large troll watchman stopped to steady Mr. de Worde by way of grabbing hold of his arm**(a)**.

William, humming thoughtfully to himself, elected entirely of his own free will to follow the aforementioned appendage as it was dragged towards the Yard. He liked his arm, after all, and, well, there was no stalling the inevitable.

**(a) Neither the first nor the last time Constable Bluejohn was chosen for such a job. When he'd once asked the Commander why he was so honored(b), Vimes had gently told him that the whole Watch admired his powers of persuasion.**

**(b) Er. Actually, he said "Why it always _me _as hafta drag in der culprits?", but the thought was there.**

--

The paper rustled ominously.

De Worde, falling victim to impatience at last, said "I can help you with any long words you don't recognize."

Vimes carefully added this to his List Of Reasons To Hate Damn Newsy People And Revenge Myself Upon Them _At A Later Date_, and said,

"It's very good."

De Worde raised an eyebrow. Well, fair enough, because the next words out of Vimes' mouth were,

"...but I need to know more. I need to know the names. I think you know the names." Think. Hah. "Where did they meet? Things like that. I need to know them."

"Some things," said de Worde, with deliberate emphasis, in Vimes' opinion, on the 'some', "are a mystery to me. You've got more than enough evidence to release Lord Vetinari."

Once he woke up, yes. And he supposed that at this point _need _was, indeed, stretching it a little. Fine.

"I _want _to know more."

"Not from me," the man retorted.

It was hard to believe that this was the same fellow who had written 'after days of patient detecting by the Watch', really, and he pointed it out.

"Come on, Mr. de Worde. We're on the same side here."

"No." There was an absolute certainty to his voice that stopped Vimes in his tracks. "We're just on two sides that just happen to be side by side."

If Vimes had been a geometrician, he would have pointed out that this was not a valid argument. As it was, he merely fumed.

"Mr. de Worde, earlier today you assaulted one of my officers. Do you know how much trouble you are in already?"

Apparently not, since the lad actually dared to say,

"I expected better of you than that, Mister Vimes. Are you saying I assaulted an officer in uniform? An officer who identified themselves to me?"

Ah. _Ah. _"Be careful, Mr. de Worde."

"I was being followed by a _werewolf_, Commander." Damn. "I took steps to inconvenience it so that I could _get away._" _Damn._ "Would you like to debate this publicly?"

Vimes did, at least, have a response ready and waiting. "Then you give me no choice but to arrest you for concealing -"

He got no farther, however, before being interrupted. Again.

"I demand a lawyer."

Well, that at least was ridiculous. "Really? And who did you have in mind at this time of night?"

With all the assurance in the world, William de Worde said "Mr. Slant."

"Slant?" said Vimes, feeling excessive punctuation creeping up on him. "You think he'll come out for you?"

"No. I know he'll come out. Believe me."

"Oh, he will, will he?"

"Trust me."

Not, thought Vimes to that last, bloody likely. But unfortunately it seemed like the real deal, and not just stalling.

He tried another tack, helped along (it needed it) by an ingratiating smile.

"Come now. Do we need this? It's the duty of every citizen to help the Watch, isn't it?"

"I don't know. I know the Watch think it is." Damn right! Vimes inserted silently. "I've never seen it written down."

Pause.

"Then again, I never knew it was the right of the Watch to spy on innocent people..."

Vimes stopped smiling.

"It was for your own good," he growled, although he knew where this was heading already.

"I didn't know it was your job to decide what was good for me."

And the world split. Or rather, Time did.

_If this was a club with nails in, this would be a different sort of city._

He'd said that, not too long ago. It was true. De Worde had no doubt assumed this to mean that Vimes _wouldn't _do the wrong thing, no matter what. He was wrong.

Because Vimes was a man divided, and sometimes the other half won. Rarely, but it happened, and it almost did then. It did, in fact, in another world as it budded away.

In another world, Vimes did what he knew he could; fail to summon Slant and thereby make Ankh-Morpork a very different sort of city indeed.

The line between almost and done is very fine. It becomes a split at moments like these...

...but in this world, Sam Vimes closed his eyes, briefly, took a deep breath, and said very calmly, "I'm not going to be led, either."

The universe let out a bated breath**(a).**

"But I have reason to believe," he continued, "that you are withholding information about a major crime, and that is an offense. That's against the law."

Smug, certain of himself, unaware of _anything, _de Worde replied, "Mr. Slant will come up with something. There's _some _precedent, I'll bet. He'll go back hundreds of years. The Patricians have always set great store by precedent." Vimes almost snorted at that - Vetinari? Precedent? Right. "Mr. Slant will dig and dig. For years, if necessary. That's how he got where he is today, by digging."

Vimes was incredibly tired, of games and of acting and of journalists. He half-fell forward onto his elbows. "Between you and me," he murmured, "and without your notebook, Mr. Slant is a devious dead bastard who can bend such law as we have into into a puzzle ring."

"Yep. And he's my lawyer. I guarantee it."

Vimes looked hard at him.

"Why would Mr. Slant speak up on your behalf?"

"Because he's a very fair man?" said de Worde innocently. "Now, are you going to send a runner to fetch him? Because if you're not, you've got to let me go."

As if he didn't know that. So Mr. Slant, at least, had been part of it. No proof, of course, just something he knew in the pit of his gut. Wonderful. What was it about that zombie and plots to get Vetinari off the... wooden chair?

Eyes still on the journalist, he got out the speaking tube, whistled in its general direction, and put it to his ear.

There was a brief pause, and then a sound like a cockroach's hymns to the Great Faucet God underneath the drain**(b)**.

"yata whipsi poitl swup?" said the speaking tube.

"Sergeant, send someone up to take Mr. de Worde down to the cells, will you?"

The sounds on the other end were hard to make out, but definitely ended in a question mark:

"swyddle yumyumpwipwipwip**(c)**?", or some such.

He stared at it for a moment, sighed, and put it back on its hook, then used the rather more time-honored method of opening the door and bellowing "Fred!"

A very quiet "Sir?" floated up.

"Send someone to take Mr. de Worde down to the cells, will you?" he yelled, before closing the door and turning back to the latter, who was opening his mouth.

"I'm calling it protective custody for now," he snapped.

"Protecting me from _whom?_" said de Worde, who apparently hadn't expected that.

"Well," said Vimes, "I personally have an overwhelming urge to give you a ding alongside the ear." His palms were itching as he spoke, actually. "But I suspect there are others out there without my self-control."

Which was unusual, but probably true just now, given the contents of the latest edition.

Angua came up. De Worde went quietly enough, if with a spring in his step that was quite irritating.

Once she'd come back up for further orders, he said, "Can you get Mr. Slant for me?"

"Slant?" she said, looking surprised.

He grimaced. "Apparently de Worde feels the need for a lawyer. I can't think why, it's for his own protection..."

"Ah." She nodded knowingly. "Right away, sir."

**(a) The universe of the Disc, it must be admitted, often lets loose a bated breath, sometimes as frequently as every other day. Still. It was a big dramatic moment. You can stop snickering now.**

**(b) Which exists, I might add. The translation goes something like this: "O source of all water, O source of all life, please don't make it hotter, it will lead to strife, ner ner ner ner ner. Ner. Ner, ner, ner, ner, ner, ner. Ner. Ner," etc.**

**(c) Lit. "a small indeterminate noise intended to signify singer's general inability to remember any words in the second verse(d)." The idiomatic equivalent of 'ner'.**

**(d) Cockroaches are concise thinkers.**

--

"Your Grace?" said Mr. Slant. "You wished to see me?"

One dead eyeball was jittering slightly, Vimes noted.

"Yes," he said, and then, just out of spite, "_do_ sit down."

There was a creaking noise, but the zombie eventually managed an approximation of a prone position.

"Well?" he said, once he was at rest.

"You've been summoned here," said Vimes, the lawyer being sufficiently uncomfortable, "at the bequest of one Mr. de Worde."

"Lord de Worde?" said Slant, forgetting himself for a moment in honest surprise**(a)**.

"His son."

"Ah," said the zombie, relaxing slightly. "What is the problem?"

"Mr. de Worde is currently under arrest."

"Oh?"

"He wishes you to speak for him."

"Does he."

"Yes."

De Worde was annoying but Slant, Vimes decided in an instantaneous decision, was infinitely worse.

"Why, exactly?" said Slant, on cue.

"This, I believe," said Vimes, with a certain amount of satisfaction.

He offered the zombie the paper. Slant took it with two delicate, greying fingers and examined the headlines.

If it were possible for a zombie to pale, he would have paled.

"Something wrong?" said Vimes, blandly.

"Uh," said Mr. Slant, in a strangled tone.

"I think I have some cough syrup around here somewhere, if that would help."

"Any embalming fluid?"

"Shockingly, no."

"Then I'm afraid not," said Slant, regaining some of his composure.

"I see. And?"

"I... will _definitely _argue for young de Worde's case."

"Do you know what it is?"

"Not yet," said Mr. Slant, with obvious implications.

"Hmph. You see, I have been forced, sadly, to arrest de Worde on the basis of withholding information about a major crime."

"Information such as...?"

"Names, for one," said Vimes.

It was almost worth the whole bloody shebang just to see the expression on Slant's visage.

Not for long, however, as he sank beneath a sea of jargon and Precedents and Past Rulings, while a small stack of paper placed in front of him by neat if corpse-like hands grew and grew. The world became a haze of words. He surfaced only occasionally, to translate the Latatian, but eventually even that made no sense: he kept coming up with phrases like _Smelling Of Violets._

And _Pockets Full Of Fish. _

And, perhaps worst of all, _I Escape Prison For Free._

He hadn't slept in more than twenty-four hours.

Enough was...

"Enough," he said wearily, sweeping away half the stack with a flick of a hand. Slant looked a touch offended, but was wise enough to shut up. "ANGUA!"  
The floorboard that had been creaking upwards slowly lowered. The door opened.

"Er, sir?"

"Send for de Worde."

"Yes, sir."

Vimes sat back and glared at Slant until the door opened again, when he was deprived of his meager entertainment by the lawyer turning around, glancing at de Worde, and saying "I believe Mr. de Worde can go free" very pointedly. He was all pomp now, Vimes noticed, on his own territory. The bastard.

He shrugged. It was too late at night for this.

"I'm only amazed you aren't asking me to give him a gold medal and an illuminated scroll of thanks," he said, recalling the Pockets Full Of Fish clause. "But I'm setting the bail at one thou-"

Slant raised a finger, interrupting him.

_"_Ah?"

_Again. _

He glared harder.

"One hun-"

"Ah?"

Fine. Fine!

He gave up. That was that. For better and for worse. And so on.

"Here," he said drily, tossing a dollar at de Worde's head. (It missed, sadly; de Worde, as Angua had already noted, had good reflexes when he wanted to.) "And if you aren't in front of the Patrician tomorrow you've got to give it back. Satisfied?" he added, mostly to Slant.

It was just his luck that de Worde was the one to answer.

"Which Patrician?"

Ha bloody ha. "Thank you for that smart answer," he ground out. "Just you be there."

"Yes, Mister Vimes," said William de Worde, and took his leave.

Slant followed, although the two did not exchange words, or if they did they waited until he was out of earshot.

Typical. Just... typical.

He read the story one more time.

Then, on the basis of a very large hunch, he got up and went down to the cells. One cell, in particular.

Igor's, in fact.

**(a) Vimes could tell by the way his brow twitched. Normally he wouldn't have noticed, but the moth larvae falling out onto the zombie's trousers was a pretty good indicator.**


	14. Lord Vetinari Awakens

**Lord Vetinari Awakens (With A Bang And A Splash)  
**

_In which Vimes makes his feelings on the so-called 'free press' excessively clear (at length), and that is bloody well that_

There was a crash.

His hunch, Vimes decided, rubbing his nose, could have come at a better moment.

"Sorry, sir! Thur!" said Igor, leaning down to help him up. "I was jutht coming out to get you and didn't thee you on the other thide of the door."

"Never mind, never mind," said Vimes with a sigh. "He's awake, isn't he."

"Yeth, thur."

And indeed, Lord Vetinari was sitting up on the slab, looking thoughtfully at the open door.

"Hello, Commander," he said, nodding to Vimes as if there was nothing unusual about this situation whatsoever. "I do hope your nose is all right."

"I'll live, I'm sure," Vimes replied, then added, prudently, "sir."

Igor had re-entered. "But how did you _know, _thur?"

"His Lordship generally has good timing."

The constable looked blank for a moment. Then his expression changed into one of revelation. "Oh. You mean… _Narrative Convenienthe_, thur?"

"Er… right. Yes. Of course."

"Amathing! Wonderful! Do you mind if I athk him a few quethtionth, thur?"

He didn't actually have time to reply before Igor barreled on, turning his copious spraying to Vetinari, who discreetly edged backwards.

"What ith your name?" Igor said, earnestly.

"Lord Havelock Vetinari." The Patrician – well, not technically, Vimes corrected himself, technically the _ex-_Patrician, although probably not destined to be long out of the office thanks to new developments – relaxed slightly.

"How old are you?"

"I do not feel the particular urge to impart that particular piece of information."

The Commander was impressed. A very long sentence with a very specific implication. He wondered vaguely if it would work on de Worde and the blonde woman whose name he had forgotten.

"Oh. Uh. What do you remember, thur?" said Igor, who had clearly just recalled what that name _meant._

Vetinari opened his mouth, and then, surprisingly, closed it again. "Ah," he said, after a moment. "That would seem to be a problem."

"If you could jutht tell me what your latht recollection ith…"

"I… sent Drumknott out to get de Worde's newspaper_," _said Vetinari, frowning. "And…"

"Yeth, thur?"

"That would seem to be all."

"I thee." Igor shared a worried look with Vimes. "It thounds like a thevere concuththion, but it'th hard to be sure. I don't thuppothe I could check, ah, directly?" he continued, a note of pleading entering his tone as he looked longingly at certain sparkly instruments in one corner.

"_No,_" said Vimes, at the same instant that there was a little clicking noise from Vetinari's general direction. He whirled around just in time to see Vetinari unfold a very flat knife. It was just about as sparkly as the instruments.

"Dear me," said Vetinari, "I do believe this needs to be oiled. It isn't sup_posed _to make that much noise."

Vimes glared at the weapon. "How did – Igor, I distinctly remember asking you to search him."

"I did, thur."

"He did," Vetinari agreed. "Very thoroughly, too. But he left them on the counter just over there."

Vimes lifted his gaze heavens-ward for a moment. "Igor," he said, "for future reference, make a note: unconscious men with a penchant for hiding pointy things in their clothing and a murder charge on their heads should be kept as far away from aforementioned pointy things as possible, once incarcerated."

"I'll make note of it, thur."

"Argh, no! Just remember, all right?"

"Murder charge?" said Vetinari, and lowered the knife suddenly. It slipped from his hands in a moment of uncharacteristic clumsiness. Vimes' eyes narrowed.

"Yes," he said. "That would be the bit you apparently don't remember."

"I murdered someone during the interim between where my memories end and where I lost consciousness?" the man continued, incredulously.

"Well, no."

"Yes, I thought I would have remembered something like that."

"You were _framed _of a murder during the interim," Vimes clarified.

"I-" he pressed two fingers to his temple. "My apologies, Commander. My head is… giving me some trouble."

"Your head?"

"Probably thuffering from a rather bad migraine right now, thur," Igor sprayed in what might have been an attempt at a whisper.

"Just so," said Vetinari. "If you could explain?"

Vimes offered him the newspaper. His lips moved as he read, which was worrying in and of itself.

"…causing him to be unjustly framed… Murder charge? What murder charge?"

Vimes looked from him to Igor and back again.

"Is this normal, Constable?" he said.

"Er, yessir. Thur. For a severe concussion."

"How long will he be like this?"

"Recovery can take from dayth to weekth, thur."

"We don't have _time _for that! Isn't there anything else you can do?"

"I assure you, I am quite well," said Vetinari, then looked confused, as if he wasn't sure why he'd said it. _Bugger._

"Well…" Igor said slowly, "there might be something…"

"What?"

Igor gently shoved him out the door and closed it behind them. Then he explained.

Vimes started to grin. "And you actually think this will work?"

"In Uberwald? Thertainly. Here it'th a little more tricky, but with the current atmothphere I think it'th possible. And you did thay he had good timing, didn't you?"

"Always."

"Tho, then."

"Right," said Vimes, "let's do it."

"It hath to be at the right moment. I'll tell you when, thur."

"Right," he said again.

They went in.

"I don't suppose you would care to explain in any way –" Vetinari started.

He never finished. "NOW!" said Igor.

Vimes thwacked the other man over the head. He probably wouldn't have made it had it not been for the concussion – even as it was, one hand was halfway to his wrist before his hand connected with Vetinari's skull.

"Ah," said Vetinari again. His eyes rolled up in his head briefly.

Then he seemed to shake himself awake. He blinked, once.

"Was that absolutely necessary?" he said. Vimes relaxed. The man's blue eyes were focused normally and the crispness was back in his voice.

Seven metaphorical levels up, the anthropomorphic representation of Narrative Convenience was doing a victory dance.

"Oh yeah," said the short man in a toga, with thick glasses perched on his nose and a machine labeled THE MACHINA WHENCE DEUS EX gripped tightly in one hand, "who da man? Who da man?"

Around him, Dramatic Narrative, Suspence, and An Actual Coherent Plot were kneeling on the ground.

"Teach us," said Suspense.

"Let us lick your almighty boots," said Dramatic Narrative.

"Yes, yes, but please, put that thing _away!_" An Actual Coherent Plot sobbed, its hands over its eyes, a third arm**(a)** waving in the general direction of the Machina.

And so on.

"Yes," said Vimes, seven metaphorical levels down. "Read that paper and you'll see. You are cured of the concussion, aren't you?"

"That would seem to be the case."

"Thanks to the age old principle of Hitting Things Over The Head To Humorously Right Their Problems?"

Vetinari gave him a dry look and pointedly unfolded the paper, the better to read it with.

"Right, then," said Vimes, one more time, and settled back to wait.

He didn't have to for long.

"Fascinating," said Vetinari. "'Patient detective work by the Watch'. It would seem I am in your debt, Commander. And young de Worde, of course. Pray tell, how did he come by this information, exactly?"

"By disabling one of my best officers, bothering me when I had better things to be doing, blackmailing Slant, and being a general pain in the bloody arse, of course," said Vimes.

"I see. Anything else?"

"And… following up on the detective work we _weren't _able to do thanks to bloody Slant and the Guild Heads," Vimes admitted, grudgingly.

"I _see._"

"I don't suppose you want to instigate new legislature for the banning of journalists from public places, sir?"

"Whyever would I wish to do that?" said Vetinari.

"He threw oil of scallatine and oil of aniseed at Sergeant Angua's nose!"

"Was the good sergeant in uniform at the time, Vimes?"

"That's what _he_ said!**(c)**"

"I see." If he hadn't know better he would have sworn Vetinari was hiding a smile, the bastard. "A pity, but I don't believe you can actually press charges on that basis."

"Slant's already made that clear. At length."

"Ah, yes, the blackmail of a respectable lawyer. Why?"

"He was involved in the plot to depose you, sir," Vimes said bluntly.

Vetinari really did smile this time. It was not a comforting smile. Vimes suspected that it was not really directed at him, however, for which he would willingly thank his lucky stars.

"Again? Dear Dr. Slant. He is so _reliable._ Very well. And is that all?"

"No! He uses his bloody notebook as a bloody weapon, you know that?"

"His notebook?" Vetinari considered briefly. "Against persons other than Slant, I take it?"

"Yes! Whenever anyone doesn't answer his bloody questions he writes down that they're not answering his questions!"

Vetinari raised an eyebrow. Vimes realized how that had probably sounded, but plowed on. "And then he goes on and on about the freedom of the press!"

"The freedom of the press?"

"Or the free press, or something like that."

"By which he means…"

"His right to write, as far as I can tell."

Another lightning-fast smile. "His right to write. Indeed. How curious. And do you disagree?"

"Well…"

No. Not really, actually. He wasn't about to admit it, though. "He doesn't have to use it everywhere! The man needs to learn a little tact!"

Something twitched in Igor's face that might on any other officer's visage have earned aforementioned officer a week's worth of patrols with Nobby. Fortunately for Igor, Vimes couldn't read the expression and let it pass.

Vetinari stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Indeed? I think I shall pay him a visit," he said. "Thank you for your input, Commander." He stood up.

Vimes blinked. "You're leaving?"

"I believe there is much to attend to."

"Er… I think Scrope's in your office…"

"Scrope?"

"They elected a new Patrician in your, uh, absence, sir."

"I see." The smile again. Vimes felt sorry for Scrope. And Slant. Or at least, he would have felt sorry for Slant if it had been possible for Slant to evoke anything resembling pity in Vimes whatsoever at all under any circumstances, which it was not. But the thought was there. "My thanks again, Commander, but I believe I shall manage, even in my current state."

And with that he collected all the pointy things from the counter in one deliberate sweep, his cane from where it was leaning against the lightning vat, and made his way out of the Watch House, subsequently vanishing into the dark and hail-y night.

"Wonderful," muttered Vimes, to no one in particular, but his heart wasn't in it.

**(a) Actual Coherent Plots, it is well known, are many-limbed and nimble(b).**

**(b) Except sometimes, when they have no limbs at all. But that's not the point. The point is that An Actual Coherent Plot quite liked having sixteen arms, and that was bloody well that, and you can stop sniggering right there, 'spense.**

**(c) And morphic resonance shakes the verses, until, on a rather rounder planet far away, someone conceives of a **_**new **_**kind of incredibly annoying joke to append to any given statement.**

--

The next morning bore some resemblance to a great big fish, although Vimes would only make that analogy in memory, years later.

Carrot came to get him. "Scrope's gone," the Captain said immediately after saluting with a sharpness that would have brought _Ronald Rust _to tears.

"Gone? What do you mean, gone?"

"Ill," Carrot corrected himself. "He sent a note."

"A note," said Vimes flatly.

"A note."

"What – oh. Vetinari."

"Yes, sir. It appears that His Lordship is well and ready to return to his duties."

"And I suspect the Guild Heads are gathering even as we speak to discuss that verdict?"

"Quite."

They went and joined them.

A little while later, just as things were getting heated between Mrs. Palm and Sir George, who had apparently been a previous client, de Worde appeared. Vetinari's not the only one with timing, Vimes thought. He grinned, not very happily.

"You're rather late, Mr. de Worde," he said.

"I'm early!" de Worde protested, the significance of the cluster of Important Citizens obviously not having penetrated yet.

"I mean that things have been happening," said Vimes, by way of explanation, and elbowed Slant, who glared at him but didn't say anything. The zombie looked like hell. Which made sense, but still. Vetinari had been at the bastard, Vimes would warrant.

Slant cleared his throat, then. "Mr. Scrope has… sent a note," he said delicately. "It appears that he is ill."

De Worde, naturally, whipped out his notebook and pen. There was an amusing pause in which the twenty-seven gazes of various pillars of society were irrevocably drawn to the small rectangular thing.

"Was it signed," said de Worde, who had the makings of a Fool – as well as of an idiot - if Vimes had ever seen one, "by his mother**(a)**?"

He snorted. Several Guild leaders carefully turned away.

"I don't follow your meaning," said Mr. Slant, which was probably true; he was not known for his sense of humor.

"What's happening, then?" the lad continued, ignoring this. "We don't have a ruler?"

"Happily," said the lawyer, with emphasis, "Lord Vetinari is feeling… very much better and expects to resume his duties tomorrow."

De Worde started to scribble, but was interrupted by Lord Downey, no less.

"Excuse me, is he allowed to write that down?"

Vimes didn't like Assassins. It was a part of his life and he wasn't about to change it now just for the sake of a damn newsy person. "Allowed by who?"

He heard de Worde mutter something that sounded suspiciously like 'whom'. He remained impassive.

"Well," Downey tried, "he can't just write down _anything, _can he? Suppose he writes down something we don't want him to write down?" His tone suggested that this was at the very edge of possibility, but should still be taken into consideration.

Vimes contemplated that question for a moment, and knew, sadly, which side he was on the same side of, despite not being on the same side. Er.

"There's no law against it," he said, and caught de Worde's eye as he said it.

De Worde met his gaze evenly. Good.

"Lord Vetinari is not going to go to trial, then, Lord Downey?" the other man said.

"Can he ask me that?" Downey asked Slant, clearly grappling with this new concept. "Just come out with a question, just like that?"

"Yes, my lord," said Mr. Slant glumly.

"Do I have to answer it?"

"It is a reasonable question under the circumstances, my lord, but you don't _have_ to."

Hah! Of course not. It's just strongly recommended.

"Do you have a message for the people of Ankh-Morpork?" de Worde interjected, with terrible innocence.

"…_do _we, Mr. Slant?"

Mr. Slant exhaled moths and air. "It may be advisable, my lord, yes."

"Oh. Well then. No, there won't be a trial. Obviously."

"And he's not going to be pardoned?" the journalist continued.

Downey mutely turned to Slant, who sighed again. "Again, my lord, it is-"

"All right, all right!" said Downey. "No, he's not going to be pardoned because it is quite clear that he is guiltless."

Depending on your definition of the word, thought Vimes, and was about to slip away, quite satisfied, when he heard:

"Would you say that this has become clear because of the excellent work done by Commander Vimes and his dedicated band of officers, aided in a small way by the _Times?_"

Oh.

He did _not. Just. Say that._

Vimes turned slowly back around.

"Would I say that?" said Lord Downey, totally lost.

"I think you possibly would, yes, my lord," said Slant, more glumly than ever.

"Oh. Then I would. Yes."

Vimes eye was twitching. He was also fighting the urge to burst out laughing.

He didn't quite catch the rest of it, but he went home with a sense that it would all work out. Well enough, anyways.

And that was bloody well that.

**(a) As it happened, yes(b).**

**(b) Actual text below:**

**dr mr slant and othrs**

**Im feeling il I hope its al right if I stay home toda?**

**mums signature: (illegible scrawl)**

**(in a different hand) What did you do to my baby? He came home gibbering and all soaked through! Two pairs of underwear ruined! I hope you fine gentlemen are all very ashamed of yourselves.**


	15. The Epilogue's SixtyFourth Cousin

**The Epilogue's Sixty-Fourth Cousin - Twice Removed  
**

_In which the final arc, well, arcs, and dark light shows its true colors - or someone's true colors, anyways_

It was, as Otto later remarked, a very peculiar thing.

In the first few months after the exciting turmoil that had marked the _Times_' advent, there were several iconographs taken of Commander Vimes. In some of them, he was even smiling. Or rather, grimacing in a way that could possibly be misconstrued as a smile, usually when Lady Sybil was around.

Most of the iconos were perfectly ordinary when developed, to be sure, except possibly for the unnerving sensation that the figure in the picture really wouldn't mind disemboweling you just now. But some of the ones he'd taken while experimenting with dark light showed something quite different. As usual, for dark light, but still.

In the picture he was examining with William those few months later, for instance. Lady Sybil and Commander Vimes were standing next to each other on the steps of Pseudopolis Yard. At first you might not even notice anything wrong (except, again, for the impression of someone else's strong desire that you fall down dead of unforeseen causes, such as disembowelment). But once stared at, the image shifted, to show Lady Sybil's arm, which had in life been clasping her husband's shoulders, instead lifted over his head, dangling a large, extremely weighty-looking book which might have been a dictionary or a manual or some such in an extremely threatening fashion.

Neither of them knew what to make of it, really. It was probably nothing.

And that was true, for a given value of true, and after a certain amount of time**(a)** it was simply true, as true as the nature of the worm in the woodwork, until His Grace received a new birthday present, anyway.

And nothing has to be true forever. Just for long enough, to tell you the truth.

**(a) The amount of time it took for Vimes to arrange for a small instance of quite totally spontaneous combustion, that is.**

A/N: FINI. (Yesssss.)


End file.
